Classic Stuffed Peppers Like Momma Used to Make

This is the classic stuffed pepper recipe that you’re looking for! Ground beef, rice and tomato sauce, piled into bell peppers and topped with gooey cheese, just like mom used to make.

How To Make Stuffed Peppers Quicker

The recipe below is for the classic version of stuffed peppers where you cook rice and cook ground beef, and mix them together. Then hollow out the peppers, put it all in there and then bake it all until the peppers are cooked and softened and everything is heated through. 

If that’s what you’re looking for, the recipe is below. But I wanted to just interrupt and tell you that there’s a quicker way. Instead of doing all that, you can make these Cheesy Chicken Stuffed Peppers. Basically, you’ll cut them in half rather than keeping them whole, like this:

Cut out the seeds and ribs. Then make a filling out of raw meat or poultry, seasonings, and cheese. The meat cooks through with no problem in the shallow pepper boat. I cut the peppers this way for Breakfast Stuffed Peppers too. More info about cutting peppers for stuffing is here.

But if you’re craving traditional and really want classic stuffed peppers, then you need to do it the longer way. There are a few short cuts though that will make the process easier.

Stuffed Pepper Shortcuts

1. Use leftover rice. Or even buy pre-cooked rice. It’s not delicious by itself but mixed into the pepper stuffing, you won’t know the difference.
2. Get out a big skillet for cooking the beef. The meat will have more space so it will cook more quickly. It will also brown better, rather than steaming when it’s crowded.
3. Pre-boil the peppers. It sounds like a pain. And it kind of is. But it cuts the baking time of the stuffed peppers down by a good 20 minutes. That’s a big deal any night. But think about it. If the beef and rice are cooked and hot, and the peppers are already tender, then all you’re really doing in the oven is melting the cheese.
4. Cut peppers in half rather than coring them. I’ve got a step-by-step article for doing this over here.

Okay, so those are all my tips for making stuffed peppers more quickly and easily. But, if you STILL want to make them the traditional way, now I’ll explain how to do that.

Ingredients For Classic Stuffed Peppers

Rice: You need 2 cups of cooked rice for making 6 stuffed bell peppers. Start with 1 cup of uncooked rice and cook it according to package instructions. The classic is to use long-grain white rice. But note that since the filling is cooked rice, you can use any kind of rice you’d like without needing to adjust the recipe. Brown rice and wild rice both work perfectly well. You can also use a different cooked grain like farro or quinoa. I wouldn’t use anything that can get mushy like cauliflower rice here because it will just disappear. Only use that if you’re pre-cooking the peppers as explained above, in which case the filling won’t be in the peppers for as long.

Ground Beef: One-pound of ground beef is what is needed here. Any kind of ground beef will work. You can alternatively use ground turkey, ground chicken, or even ground pork. As long as you cook it fully and drain off excess fat, it will work just fine.

Onion and Veggies: All I put into these classic peppers is some onion that gets sauteed before I add the beef to the pan. But you could add in 2 ribs on finely chopped celery, 4 ounces of chopped mushrooms, 2 medium carrots, finely chopped, and/or 2-4 cloves of minced garlic. Saute those until just soft before adding the ground beef to the skillet. If you want to add some greens like spinach, add 3 cups of fresn spinach leaves to the cooked beef mixture, stirring until it wilts in. Or squeeze the liquid out of thawed frozen spinach (and 10 ounce package) and add that after the beef is cooked.

Tomato Sauce: You’ll need 2 and 1/2 cups of tomato sauce. Any basic tomato sauce or marinara that you like will work here. I do not recommend substituting canned diced tomatoes or crushed tomatoes or rotel or anything like that. Those are all too watery and they will leak out of the peppers. If you want to use canned tomatoes or anything waterier like that, here’s what you do. Right after the ground beef has cooked, sprinkle it with 2 tablespoons of all-purpose white flour. Stir. Then add your 2 cups of liquidy tomato and stir. Bring it to a simmer. It should thicken up enough to use in the peppers. Then stir in your rice and you’re all set.

Cheese: I think because of the ground beef and tomato sauce being reminiscent of Italian flavors, my mom always put shredded mozzarella cheese on her peppers. But any cheese that melts well will work just fine. I quite like them with Cheddar cheese, actually. Colby and Swiss cheese are other options. What you’ll do is once the peppers are cooked through and tender, add a tablespoon of tomato sauce on top of the filling on each one and then top that with the shredded cheese. Bake just until the cheese melts.

Bell Peppers: You’ll need 6 bell peppers of any color. You can use a different kind of pepper but they don’t cook in the same way so I wouldn’t recommend it for this recipe. Now, here is how you prep the peppers for making stuffed peppers.

Cutting and Prepping The Peppers

You’ll start by cutting the stem end off of the pepper like this:

Then, remove the core and all seeds and ribs from inside so it looks like this:

If your bell pepper doesn’t want to stand up properly, there is a solution. Make some thin flat slices on the bottom bumps of the pepper, being careful to not cut right into the pepper, like this:

Just that little bit off of the bottom will make sure that your peppers don’t topple over.

Next, you can use the peppers uncooked just like that. If you do that, once you stuff them, they’ll go into a baking dish and then into the oven at 350F oven for about 40 minutes.

If you want to speed up the process, you can pre-cook the peppers. If you do this while the rice and beef are cooking, it makes the whole dish come together a bit quicker. But it’s not that much quicker so I’m never sure if it’s worth it. The full instructions for pre-cooking your peppers is over here. But basically, what you’ll do is to put the peppers, cut side up, into a large pot. Fill the peppers with water so that they don’t float, and then fill the pot around the peppers with water so that it is full. It will look like this:

Put a lid on the pot and bring it to a boil over high heat. Drop the temperature down to medium-low and let the peppers hard-simmer until tender, about 3-4 minutes. Finally, transfer the peppers to a bowl of ice water so that they cool down and stop cooking. Then you’ll stuff the peppers, put them into a baking dish, stuff them and bake at 350F just until everything is heated through, about 25 minutes.

That is pretty much it. I predict that classic and delicious stuffed peppers are going to be in your future very soon!

More Ground Beef Recipes

This post originally appeared in October 2015 and was revised and republished in August 2024.