Great recipe - It was an Italian twist on traditional stuffed peppers and a nice change from my usual "rice and beef" version. I used 1 & 1/2 lbs. of lean ground beef and italian style bread crumbs. I left out the mushrooms (personal preference for my husband). After cutting and cleaning the peppers I always boil them for about three minutes to get them a little soft so you don't end up with hard shells at the end of the cooking process. Instead of jarred spaghetti sauce I used an old favorite "Best Marinara Sauce Yet" from this site and added it to the peppers before they went into the oven. I don't bother with cooking them with the tops. These came out so good. I served them with "Garlic Mashed Potatoes" from this site.
Hubs and I SO enjoyed this! Like eating a big delicious meatball in a sweet pepper! We're watching carbs where we can so I cut back on the bread crumbs a little. I found I was glad I did carb watching or not. The full half cup of crumbs would have been a little too much filler for me. I cut back on the Parmesan cheese as well - a little goes a long way. I also found that just as with meatballs I had to moisten the mixture up a bit with a little milk. Rather than the Italian seasoning I used fresh Italian flat-leaf parsley fresh oregano and some dried basil but I have no doubt the Italian seasoning would have been equally as good. I chose to use red orange and yellow peppers both for their vibrant color as well as their more mellow sweeter flavor. Everything worked well here all ingredients perfectly suited to each other. Loved the addition of the mushrooms as well as the mozzarella. I halved the peppers lengthwise and as I always do with stuffed peppers blanched them for about three minutes before filling and baking them. Finally rather than the jarred spaghetti sauce I used my tomato sauce I put up from my garden. If you use the jarred stuff I'd recommend a simple marinara rather than something heavily seasoned. Normally I'd serve this with mashed potatoes or considering the Italian slant in this recipe pasta but in keeping with our carb watching I served it with some leftover "Whipped Butternut Squash " recipe also from this site. Excellent.
Definitely a great rendition of the original as I am not a fan of rice. I did make a couple of changes and cooked the ground beef onions & garlic first to avoid the chance of it not being done (& helped reduce the fat). I then added 1/4 c. italian seasoned bread crumbs & omitted the egg & italian seasoning. I also added the sauce to ground beef when I mixed it w/ the remaining ingredients. Cut the cooking time to 45 mins and it turned out awesome.
These were great I stuffed both red and green bell peppers since that was what we had. I dont know if I had small peppers but I ended up needing 7 peppers so I could use up all the filling. Next time I think I would use a leaner hamburger we had 80/20 on hand the the peppers oozed grease when cut into. They tatsted excellent after being reheated for lunch.
Definitely will make this again. I did add spaghetti sauce to the mixture before I stuffed the peppers. Nice change from the beef and rice mixture.
Really delicious dish. Used turkey instead of beef. A little difficult to determine when meat was thorougly cooked. Not recommended as leftovers. But right out of the oven it was very very tasty.
I changed this up a bit but it was great and even my picky 5 year old ate it! Use Italian sausage in place of ground beef and more mushrooms it's worth it. I sauteed the mushrooms onion and garlic in EVO before adding the meat and browning (I too fear undercooking). Add the spaghetti sauce bread crumbs and cheese heat and filled the peppers. It was great and I wish I had made more I would love another!
my husband had been asking for these for awhile now I don't care for green peppers so was worried about the taste. These were wonderful. After reading the reviews I did make a few adjustments boiled the peppers first cooked the meat first and I added stewed tomatoes with green chilis for a little bit of spicy. These were a HUGE hit will definately make againa and again.
My husband thought this would have been really good if the peppers weren't cooked. Also had a hard time getting the meat mixture done. I think next time I make this I will cook the meat mixture then stuff in peppers and serve cold.
