Get in the kitchen and make some: Mexican Stuffed Peppers

Mexican Stuffed Peppers (allrecipes.com)

Prep Time: 15 Min

Cook Time: 1 Hr

Ready In: 1 Hr 15 Min

Ingredients

• 1 pound ground turkey
• 1 (1 ounce) package low-sodium taco seasoning mix
• 3/4 cup water
• 2 teaspoons chili powder
• 2 cups cooked brown rice
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon garlic salt
• 1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 2 (8 ounce) cans tomato sauce, divided
• 4 large red bell peppers
• 1 cup shredded cheese (cheddar or mexican blend are both great)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9x13-inch baking dish.
2. Place ground turkey into a skillet on medium heat and brown the meat, breaking it apart into crumbles as it cooks. 
3. In another pot, boil water and cook rice.
4. When turkey is finished cooking, drain excess fat. Stir in the taco seasoning, water, chili powder, cooked rice, salt, garlic salt, black pepper, and 1 of the cans of tomato sauce; mix until thoroughly combined. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to low, and simmer 20 minutes. 
5. Meanwhile, cut the bell peppers in half lengthwise, and remove stems, membranes, cores, and seeds. Place a steamer insert into a large saucepan, and fill with water to just below the bottom of the steamer. Cover, and bring the water to a boil over high heat. Place the peppers into the steamer insert, cover the pan, and steam until just tender, 3 to 5 minutes. (I have tried both the steamer and just boiling the peppers in water. Both work but the peppers do get really mushy when you boil them so the steamer is better).
6. Place the steamed peppers into the prepared baking dish, and fill with the meat filling. (I dump all of the filling onto the peppers - there will be a lot).
7. Sprinkle cheese on the top and spoon the remaining can of tomato sauce over the peppers. Cover the dish with aluminum foil.
8. Bake in the preheated oven until the peppers are tender and the filling is hot, 25 to 30 minutes.

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Two quick disclaimers. 1 - It is a complete coincidence that the last recipe I blogged about also happened to be a stuffed pepper recipe. I swear I cook more than stuffed peppers. 2 - The last time I blogged a recipe was in July! I swear I have cooked new recipes since then. Needless to say, I have a lot of catching up to do with my recipe blogging. Now, onto the important stuff...

Pat and I absolutely love this recipe. The original recipe is from allrecipes.com but I have modified the ingredients and directions based on the way that I have tried to "healthify" the recipe. You can use beef instead of the turkey, regular taco seasoning and white rice but I swear, we've had it both ways and it tastes just as good so why not go the healthy route?

When I told my mom I was going to try this recipe, she was appalled. She couldn't believe I was going to mess with the original stuffed pepper recipe. But now that we've had it (several times) it's hard to imagine going back to the original recipe! Yes, it's that good.

Cutting the peppers in half, length wise, is great because you don't have to worry about the peppers standing up straight and one half of the pepper is a perfect serving size (unless you're Pat). You will have lots of leftover stuffing which is really good with tortilla chips (multigrain, of course).

If you wanted to switch things up a bit, you could also chop the peppers into chunks and make it more of a casserole instead of the stuffed peppers. I haven't tried that yet but I'm sure it would be delicious!

If you try this recipe, I'd love to hear what you think about it!