This dinner staple gets a summery makeover with stuffed peppers cooked over the grill!
I had never heard of stuffed peppers until college. My mom isn’t a pepper fan, so growing up I don’t think I ever saw a bell pepper at our house. My only exposure was when we would go over to someone else’s house or dine at a restaurant. However, when you live in the dorms and are on a college meal plan you learn not to be picky, and by sophomore year I found myself actually enjoying peppers in my food. But it wasn’t until dating Bry that I realized stuffed peppers were a meal many people grew up eating. And I totally see why it is so popular: it’s the perfect vessel for leftovers and odds and ends in your produce drawer.
These peppers are exactly that: odds and ends in my fridge and pantry. A bag of shredded Mexican cheese with about a quarter left, a yellow zucchini we meant to grill but forgot about it, 1/2 a tomato, a nearly empty taco seasoning packet, and of course the pantry must-haves: beans and rice. All that I had to grab from the store were 4 bell peppers – love budget-friendly meals!
While traditionally stuffed peppers are baked in the oven, it’s been wicked hot in Boston these past couple days so I’ve been trying to use the oven as little as possible. Instead, these peppers are cooked on the grill. Best part? They only take 10 minutes to cook! So as long as you grab a bag of quick-cook rice, you could be eating dinner in about 20 minutes from now.
Again, stuffed peppers are super flexible, so feel free to sub in whatever vegetables you have lying around. While we try to go meatless a couple nights per week, if you can’t imagine dinner without some form of beef of poultry go ahead and cook up ground turkey to throw into the filling mixture.
So here’s a toast to keeping the kitchen from getting too toasty this summer!
Grilled Stuffed Peppers
Ingredients
- 4 bell peppers
- 1 cup cooked rice
- 1 can of beans
- 1 zucchini steamed or grilled then diced
- 1 tomato diced
- 1 avocado
- 1-2 Tbs taco seasoning depending on how much of a flavor punch you’re going for
- 1/2 cup shredded Mexican cheese + a little extra to sprinkle on top
Instructions
- Prepare rice according to package directions.
- While rice cooks, combine beans, vegetables of choice, taco seasoning, and 1/4 cup of cheese. Mix well. Taste and adjust as desired.
- Prepare peppers by slicing off the tops and removing the seeds. You can dice up the tops of the peppers and throw them in the filling mixture as well, or if that sounds like pepper-overload save them for a stir fry later on in the week.
- Once rice is cooked, add to filling mixture.
- Heat grill on high.
- While grill heats up, fill each pepper with the filling mixture and place filled peppers in a cast-iron skillet or a drip pan. Sprinkle tops of peppers with extra cheese.
- Place pan on the grill and close the lid. Cook for about 10 minutes or until peppers start to soften. Serve with avocado slices.
- Enjoy!
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