Italia Sweet Stuffed Peppers – old-fashioned family recipe for easy and healthy stuffed red peppers with ground beef/turkey or pork mince. Prepared with rice and traditional spices, these peppers are a dream dinner.
Today I’m showing you how to cook stuffed sweet red peppers – the proper old-school way. You’ll find stuffed peppers in loads of cuisines, but this one’s a classic Bulgarian recipe my gran used to make back in the day. She picked it up from her mum, who learned it from hers… you get the picture. The peppers I’m using are your everyday sweet red ones – you might know them as Italian red peppers.
Fun fact: In Bulgaria, it’s common to serve these beauties with a yoghurt-based sauce. Not just any yoghurt though – Bulgarian yoghurt. It’s a touch different from the Greek stuff: slightly tangier, and packed with friendly gut bacteria that make it even healthier.
Prepare this Greek Yogurt Tahini sauce recipe – drizzle it over the peppers and you’ve got yourself pure magic on a plate..
Italian sweet red peppers are a well-loved variety all across Europe. Different countries have their own twists – some a bit longer, some a bit rounder – but they all share the same winning traits: natural sweetness, thin skin, and juicy flesh. In other words, they’re ideal for salads, roasting, grilling, or stuffing. And honestly, whichever type of sweet red pepper you’ve got to hand, this recipe will happily adapt.
Ingredients & Substitutions:
- Sweet Red peppers – use Italia red peppers (also known as sweet Italian peppers) or any type of sweet red peppers. Recipe works well with green poblano peppers as well. Choose peppers that are straight for easier stuffing.
- Ground meat – turkey, beef or pork – or a mix works well
- Onion – minced
- Carrot – shredded – just tastes better than simply minced
- White rice – any type of rice works here, even Jasmin rice or brown rice
- Spices: sea salt, black pepper, paprika, summer savory spice (or mint), cumin
- Water for cooking rice in
- Parsley for garnish
NOTE: I usually prepare these peppers with ground turkey or a mix of ground beef and pork. However, recipe works well with all kinds of minced meat.
How to cook stuffed sweet Italia peppers?
1st: Prepare ground meat-rice stuffing on the stove top.
2nd: Stuff each red pepper with the mix and bake in preheated oven for a while.
What to serve with stuffed peppers:
There are a few things I like to serve with these old-fashioned red peppers, mainly salads and a good Yogurt-based sauce.
Italia Stuffed Peppers (old-fashioned)
Equipment
- 1 Baking dish
- 1 cooking pot with lid
- 1 cutting board & knife
Ingredients
- 1 kg red Italia peppers, medium to large
- 400 g ground beef/pork, or ground turkey
- 150 g white rice
- 1 medium onion, minced
- 1 medium carrot, shredded
- 2 tbsp. sweet paprika
- 2 tbsp. summer savory spice, or dried mint
- 1 tsp. cumin powder
- salt and black pepper to taste
- 2 tbsp. olive oil
- 4 cups water, for rice and more for baking
Instructions
- First, in a large pot sauté minced onion and shredded carrot in olive oil. Then, add ground meat and sauté further.
- Next, add rice and brown slightly (approx. 2-3 min). Add all herbs and water. Give it a good stir and let simmer on the stove top until rice is fully cooked.
- In the meantime, prepare red peppers. Clean peppers from seeds by cutting the top off. Then, with a sharp knife make a thin cross-like cut at the bottom of each pepper.
- With a spoon add stuffing to each red pepper. Arrange in a baking dish of choice with minimum space in between.
- Then, add cold water to cover 1/3 of peppers and bake in preheated oven (180C/360F) for about 20 minutes. Or until red peppers start to soften and get darker.
- Serve immediately with some (Bulgarian) Yogurt on the side.
Looks delicious, my grandma used to grow peppers in her garden 🤤