This stuffed pepper recipe is easy to make. Perfect for meal prep, this recipe freezes and reheats well too!
Stuffed bell peppers are filled with a savory mix of beef, sausage, rice, and marinara. They’re baked with cheese until tender for a classic, cozy meal.
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Holly’s Recipe Highlights
- Flavor: Savory ground beef, tender veggies, and fluffy rice come together in a rich tomato sauce, all topped with golden, melty cheese.
- Budget Tip: Replace half of the meat with black or kidney beans. You can stretch the filling further by adding extra rice or veggies and filling some extra peppers.
- Prep Note: Depending on the size of your peppers, you might end up with extra filling. It’s great in zucchini boats or as a filling for portobello mushrooms.
- Prep Ahead/Freezer: These can be prepared 2 days ahead or prepared and frozen before baking (freezing instructions below).
Easy Ingredients and Add-Ins
- Bell Peppers: Choose any color of bell peppers. Green peppers are more earthy in flavor, while red, yellow, or orange peppers are a bit sweeter. Just cut the tops off and remove the seeds.
- Meat: Ground beef and Italian sausage add a lot of flavor. You can use just one, or any combination of ground meat, including ground turkey or chicken, ground pork, or turkey sausage.
- Rice: Use uncooked long-grain rice. If using cooked rice, simmer in the sauce for just 5 minutes.
- Sauce: Use a jar of pasta sauce, or control the flavors and try homemade marinara sauce.
- Cheese: Optional, but I love a cheesy topping! Try mozzarella or an Italian blend.
How to Make Stuffed Peppers
- Pre-cook the peppers and brown the meat mixture (recipe below).
- Add the remaining filling ingredients and cook until the rice is tender.
- Fill upright peppers with the meat and rice mixture. Sprinkle with cheese and bake until bubbly.
Save It for Later
- Store leftover stuffed peppers in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 4 days. Reheat peppers in the microwave, air fryer, or stovetop in a pan with a little water at the bottom on medium-low heat.
- To freeze, line the baking dish with parchment paper and assemble the peppers as directed without baking. Ensure the filling is cooled and cover tightly with plastic wrap. Thaw overnight in the refrigerator and bake as directed, adding 15 minutes to the baking time.
Savory Stuffed Pepper Recipes
Did you make these Stuffed Peppers? Leave a rating and comment below.
Ingredients
- 6 medium bell peppers any color
- 8 ounces lean ground beef
- 8 ounces Italian sausage
- 1 small yellow onion diced
- 2 cloves garlic minced
- 1 (14.5 ounce) can canned petite diced tomatoes with juice
- 1¼ cups water
- 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
- ½ cup long grain white rice uncooked
- ½ teaspoon Italian seasoning
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon black pepper
- 2½ cups marinara sauce divided
- ½ cup shredded mozzarella cheese or cheddar cheese, optional
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease a 9×13-inch casserole dish.
- Cut off the tops of the bell peppers. Discard the stems, finely chop the tops, and set aside for the sauce. Core the peppers, discarding the membranes and seeds.
- To cook the peppers, bring a large pot of water to a boil. Cook the peppers for 5 minutes and then drain them well. Alternatively, air fry the peppers at 400°F for 5 minutes.
- For the filling, heat a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the ground beef, Italian sausage, diced onion, and minced garlic. Cook, breaking it up with a spoon, until no pink remains. Drain the fat.
- Add diced tomatoes with their juices, water, Worcestershire sauce, rice, the diced pepper tops, Italian seasoning, and ¼ teaspoon each salt and black pepper.
- Bring the mixture to a boil, reduce the heat to a low simmer, and cover. Cook until the rice is tender, about 15 to 20 minutes, adding more water if needed. Remove from the heat and stir in ½ cup of the marinara. Taste and season with more salt and pepper if desired.
- Place 1 ½ cups of marinara sauce in the bottom of the prepared baking dish. Add the peppers, cut-side-up, and divide the rice mixture evenly into the peppers. Spoon the remaining marinara sauce over the top.
- Cover tightly with foil, bake for 35 minutes.
- Carefully remove the foil and spoon the sauce from the bottom of the dish over the peppers. Top with cheese (if using) and bake uncovered for an additional 10 to 12 minutes or until the peppers are tender and the cheese is fully melted.
- Rest for 5 minutes before serving.
Video
Notes
Rice: If using cooked rice, skip the water and simmer the rice in the sauce for about 5 minutes. Brown rice should be pre-cooked.
Peppers: For firm to tender-crisp peppers, skip the boiling step and bake as directed. I prefer the texture when the peppers are softer.
Seasoning: Marinara sauce can vary in salt levels and seasonings. Taste a bit of the filling and add salt to taste.
Additional vegetables, such as diced zucchini or chopped mushrooms, can be added to the filling.
Nutrition Information
Calories: 397 | Carbohydrates: 32g | Protein: 19g | Fat: 22g | Saturated Fat: 9g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 2g | Monounsaturated Fat: 9g | Trans Fat: 0.5g | Cholesterol: 63mg | Sodium: 980mg | Potassium: 1023mg | Fiber: 6g | Sugar: 13g | Vitamin A: 4384IU | Vitamin C: 168mg | Calcium: 123mg | Iron: 4mg
Nutrition information provided is an estimate and will vary based on cooking methods and brands of ingredients used.
Course Beef, Casserole, Dinner, Entree, Main Course, Pork
Cuisine American, Italian© SpendWithPennies.com. Content and photographs are copyright protected. Sharing of this recipe is both encouraged and appreciated. Copying and/or pasting full recipes to any social media is strictly prohibited. Please view my photo use policy here.
Delicious recipe, I used tomato sauce instead of marinara. Turned out great.
Really easy and delicious, just didn’t call for salt n pepper, needed a little.
I wish the recipe specified how much you needed to use in the cheeses vs the spinach. When you’re trying to teach a child how to cook and your using recipes from the internet, it’s best to have precise measurements and directions.
For this recipe, we don’t use spinach but we do add ½ cup of cheddar cheese as indicated in step 8 of the recipe. You could add spinach to taste if you liked, I hope that helps! Have fun cooking Roberta :)
You’re using a free website to teach your kid how to cook. If you want a recipe aimed for kids, find one. Or better yet, spend some money and buy a specific kids cookbook. You sound awfully entitled.
Easy recipe, husband loved it.
My family loves this! The sauce is delicious. I use it on spaghetti noodles for the kids that dont like the peppers and make a few less peppers.
That’s a great idea!!
Great recipe, loved cooking the rice in with the meat. I omitted the tomatoes as we don’t enjoy them but added a squeeze of pizza sauce for flavour and subbed beef broth for water. Also used some leftover (uncooked) blueberry sausages and uncased them that I had on hand for the meat filling. I now call these peppers “Sweet and Savory Stuffed”. Thanks for the recipe.
love your recipes
The stuffing was a bit soupy before stuffing peppers. I added a 1/4 tsp of red pepper and 1/3 cup of parmesan and 1 tsp salt to stuffing. Next time I’ll add only 1 cup of water (used chicken stock)
I added a box of Zatarans black beans and rice along with smoked sausage to my mix and it was delicious!!!!
How do you make marinara sauce
Hi Joy, You can follow this easy marinara sauce recipe.
I want to make this Stuffed pepper so badly but 6 peppers is way too much as i live alone. And cutting the recipe in half just doesn’t look right. So can these be frozen and if so for how long?
Yes, these can be frozen before baking for up to 4 months.
Awesome site!!!!
I like the way the peppers look do you have any other recipes I can try .
There are so many delicious recipes to try Doris! You can check out ones with bell peppers specifically here. Have fun cooking.
I find that half the recipes say not necessary to boil the peppers first. I have made for years so it made sense to just stuff and bake as the baking period is sure long enough. Found out it is totally unecessary to pre cook the peppers. They were perfect in fact less waterlogged and mushy. I have never gone back to doing that step again. I think the cook here still does it as I have always done it like my mother did too. But trust me it is not needed.
Hi Lori, thanks for the suggestion. Glad to hear that works too!
I made these stuffed peppers tonight and my husband said they were the best I’ve ever made! He went back for seconds…I think he ate three in total :) he added a little salt, pepper and Parmesan cheese. I used Bertolli Olive oil and garlic marinara sauce. Will definitely make these again.
Love this Lady presentation
It was amazing, and it came out great. I precooked the filling, par-cooked the bell peppers by steaming them and finished them off in the oven for 40 min with the last 10 min for melting the cheese. To make the filling, I precooked the rice and veggies all separately for each element. I used fresh tomatoes, onion, garlic, 8 ounces tomato sauce, basil, oregano, fresh pepper and salt. I sauteed all the veggies and added them to the browned meat. I seasoned each element while sauteing so that the filling was fully flavored. I also used Spanish extra virgin olive oil. it was so good. I also steamed the peppers using a professional steamer versus boiling them. I steamed them for about 3 min or until the color of the green peppers just barely started to turn color. also, I ran them under cold water to stop the cooking before stuffing them. I also drained the excess juice from the filling before stuffing the peppers. I love this and will make it again! I will probably try to prep the day before so that it’s faster. It’s not really something that I would want to do after work due to the prep, but I totally LOVED this! I will be checking your site for other yummy recipes. thanks!
I appreciate your enthusiasm, but, if you want to make these after work, I would suggest following the recipe, which is much more condensed and honestly, the flavor is wonderful, even without all the extra steps.
I made these today and they were so good! I used red bell peppers and the pepper itself was sweet and delicious. I cut my peppers the other way and I used 5 halfs (3 peppers). The other half was used cut up small as a part of the filling. I had a little filling left over that I nestled in the side of the pan. So good! I recommend this recipe to everyone.
That sounds amazing Linda! Thanks for sharing.
Absolutely delicious!
So happy you loved it Katy!
Made this today with rice. Even made the tomato salad to go with. Had extra Boccocini so I stuck one in the middle for a little “surprise”. It’s yummy! However I’d like to maybe try with cauliflower rice in the future. How much do you recommend adding and would you omit the water? Thanks!
Hi Sallie, we have only made this recipe as written. If wanting to substitute cauliflower rice you may want to cook it (according to package directions) and add it to the mixture right before stuffing the peppers. Let us know how it turns out!
Hey Sallie, just so you know, I have made stuffed peppers with cauliflower rice a few times now and it’s so yummy. I cook the rice before hand, and then add it to the meat with a homemade tomato sauce and it’s so good. I’m keto so it’s an awesome way of having yummy food without the extra carbs.