Stuffed Peppers are an easy, all-in-one dinner made with colorful bell peppers, a savory beef and sausage filling, and plenty of marinara sauce. They’re make-ahead friendly, freezer-friendly, and perfect for busy weeknights.
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Holly’s Recipe Highlights: Stuffed Peppers
- Flavor: Rich, savory, and comforting, every bite is packed with seasoned meat, tender rice, sweet bell peppers, and tangy marinara.
- Why Make It: Cooking the rice right in the tomato mixture helps it soak up the sauce and keeps the filling flavorful.
- Serving Suggestions: These peppers are a complete meal on their own, but they’re delicious served with a crisp green salad and warm garlic bread for soaking up the extra marinara sauce.
Total Time: 1 Hour 20 Minutes Servings: 6 Cooking Method: Oven Baked
Ingredient Notes
- Bell peppers: Any color works. Green peppers have a slightly sharper flavor, while red, yellow, and orange peppers are sweeter.
- Meat: Lean ground beef makes the filling hearty without becoming greasy, while Italian sausage adds richness and plenty of flavor. Use mild, sweet, or hot Italian sausage depending on your preference, and be sure to drain any excess fat after browning the meat.
- Long Grain White Rice: Uncooked long grain white rice simmers in the tomato mixture, absorbing all of the delicious flavors as it cooks. If using cooked rice instead, omit the water and simmer the filling just until everything is heated through and well combined. If using brown rice, make sure it is precooked.
- Marinara Sauce: Choose a marinara sauce you enjoy, as it adds flavor to both the filling and the peppers while they bake. Since some sauces are saltier than others, taste the filling before adding any extra salt.
How to Make Stuffed Peppers
- Cut and clean out the peppers, and then boil.
- Cook the filling in a skillet.
- Fill the peppers.
- Bake (full recipe below).
Stuffed Pepper Pointers
- For Softer Peppers: Boil or air fry them before filling. For tender-crisp peppers, skip that step.
- Drain the Peppers: Draining them well after boiling prevents a watery dish.
- Taste the Filling: Taste before stuffing because marinara sauce and sausage can vary in saltiness.
- Do Not Pack Tightly: Use a spoon to gently press the filling into the peppers, but do not pack it too tightly.
- Spooning the Sauce: Spoon from the bottom of the dish over the peppers before adding cheese for extra moisture and flavor.
Save Every Stuffed Pepper
- Leftovers: Keep leftovers in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 4 days.
- Reheating: Reheat in the microwave, covered loosely, until heated through. For the oven, place peppers in a baking dish with a little marinara or water, cover with foil, and heat at 350°F until warm.
- To Freeze: Assemble the peppers without baking and cool the filling completely first. Cover tightly and freeze. Thaw overnight in the refrigerator, then bake as directed, adding about 15 minutes if needed.
More Stuffed Pepper Favorites
Did you enjoy the following Stuffed Peppers Recipe? Leave a comment and rating 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
- 1 ¼ cups water
- 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
- ½ cup long grain white rice uncooked
- ½ teaspoon Italian seasoning
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon black pepper
- 2 ½ 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.
Leftovers: Keep leftovers in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 4 days.
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.