Most of my close friends and family know that I’m not much of a cook or baker. When the holidays roll around, I’m always eager to try a new recipe, but most of the time it fails. One irony is that one of my most hated recipes is my dad’s favorite! I guess there’s always the oddball!
This particular recipe I want to share is one that I claim as my own, but I have used a few other recipes as a guide. I normally like to use red peppers, but really any bell pepper is fine. In this post, I’ll share photos of my dinner where we got orange, yellow, and green bell peppers from a local farmer’s market. Unfortunately, I didn’t think to take photos step by step until I was putting the peppers in the oven! But here goes anyway!
Mel’s Italian Stuffed Bell Peppers
4-6 bell peppers
1 lb. ground beef
1 1/2 to 2 cups cooked rice (I use white rice)
2 cups spaghetti sauce
1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese
Shredded mozzarella cheese
Preheat oven to 450°F.
Cut the stems out of the peppers and cut the peppers in half, lengthwise. Make sure all seeds and ribs are removed from the peppers. Place the peppers on a baking pan that has been lined with foil and sprayed with cooking spray such as Pam.
Brown the ground beef and drain the grease, then return to pan.
In a separate pan, begin to cook your rice based on the packaging so that it will be done when ready to add to beef mixture.
To the ground beef, add the spaghetti sauce, Italian seasoning, garlic powder, salt, pepper, and Parmesan cheese. Cook over medium heat until spaghetti sauce starts to warm and all ingredients are well mixed.
When the rice is done cooking, slowly and gently stir into beef mixture until combined.
Spoon mixture into each pepper. The amount of peppers you need will vary based on how big the peppers are and how much beef mixture you desire in each pepper, so you may use your judgment.
Once all the peppers are filled with the beef mixture, sprinkle desired amount of mozzarella cheese on top of each pepper.
Bake for 15 to 25 minutes, or until cheese is melted and golden brown. Remove from oven to cool slightly, but serve hot.
My personal opinion is that this recipe fares better with red, orange, or yellow peppers over the green peppers, but we used what was at our market, and it still turned out great!
Let me know if you try this recipe and what changes you might make! Enjoy!!!
Rambling Geek 