Gluten-Free Cheesy Stuffed Peppers
Description
Some of my strongest food memories are attached to the repeated meals we would eat growing up. To feed a family of five, my parents would often create a simple filling of cooked rice mixed with sauteed ground beef and some vegetables, which was used as the filling for stuffed peppers.
I remember eating one variety of stuffed pepper where the filling was a mixture of red bean chili with rice, which was not only incredible tasting, but was also great use of leftover chili!
After being topped with some shredded cheese and baked in the oven, they always tasted absolutely delicious.
I’ve used chicken thighs in the recipe below, but you can easily omit chicken from the filling to keep this recipe vegan and delicious.
Ingredients
Instructions
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Preheat the oven to 390˚F.
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Rinse your dried rice until the water runs clear.
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Cook your rinsed rice with roughly one cup of water and a small pinch of salt, making sure to keep the rice covered tightly with a lid.
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When the water starts simmering, reduce the heat to the lowest setting and cook with the tight-fitting lid for roughly 16 minutes.
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After 16 minutes, fluff the rice gently with a fork, and set the rice aside while you prepare the remaining filling ingredients.
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Salt the chicken thighs lightly on the outsides, and sauté the chicken in hot olive oil in a sauté pan until cooked-through, or about 9-12 minutes.
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Remove the chicken from the pan, and shred the chicken with forks. Set the shredded chicken aside with the cooked rice.
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Add the onions, chicken stock, sweet corn, Roma tomato, jalapeno, dried oregano, garlic powder, and black pepper to the sauté pan that you used to cook the chicken.
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Bring the contents to a simmer, and add in the shredded chicken and cooked rice from earlier.
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Turn off the heat, and fold-in the mozzarella cheese and mix well.
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Taste the filling, and add more salt or pepper if desired.
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Cut the tops off the bell peppers, and remove the inner cores and seeds. Save the tops of the bell peppers.
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Fill each of the hollowed-out bell peppers with the filling mixture from earlier.
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Add the tops back onto the stuffed bell peppers.
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Arrange the stuffed peppers on a parchment-lined sheet tray, and bake them at 390˚F for roughly 30 minutes, or until the peppers are tender and have started to take on color.
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Serve hot, with some fresh parsley or cilantro and a squeeze of lime juice.
Note
The world is your oyster with this recipe—go nuts and add some nuts to the filling. Add whatever fresh herbs and/or vegetables you have sitting around in your fridge. Use whatever cheeses you like, or make this recipe even healthier by substituting the rice for cauliflower rice!
