My Mother’s Stuffed Pepper Recipe

Buongiorno! Time for some comfort food this week and I couldn’t get my mother’s stuffed peppers out of my head. Ive made them twice this week (that’s how good they are) and had to share them with you. They are so good, so easy and ohhhhhh so delicious you will simply LOVE them! Recipe Below!

RECIPE:
4 Large or 6 Smaller Bell Peppers
1/2 cup of Long Grain Rice, rinsed and cooked half way through(I measured the half cup dry then cooked it and cooled it)
1lb of Ground Beef
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1/4 cup of Parsley, finely chopped
1/2 cup of Parm
1/2 cup of Diced Provolone or Mozzarella
24oz (28 will work just fine) of Passata
Basil
Salt
Olive Oil

Printable recipe: http://www.laurainthekitchen.com

Instagram: @mrsvitale

We are making my mother’s delicious stuffed peppers. They are so good, so easy, so fantastic. I know you will love them. They’re not very difficult to make. To me, it tastes like a giant meatball sort of in a pepper and it kind of cooks together for a long time and it just gets tender and delicious. And I know that you will love them. There’s nothing particularly difficult crazy about this recipe, but it is very, very loved. And when I was talking about this on a recent live that I did, I had a ton of people tell me that this is how you your family made has made uh stuffed peppers for years and years and years and it made you feel so good to hear about them again and so I wanted to just make this recipe to I don’t know share it with you. You know why do I make every recipe? Okay, I am uh finally chopping some parsley. Now the recipe for this is very simple. I’m using all ground beef, but you you can use a mix of beef, pork, and ve if you want to. If that is what you use in your meatballs. I just use all ground beef because that’s just what my mama makes it like. Um that’s just what she uses and it just tastes so so good to me. So, the recipe itself, like I said, is not very complicated. It is quite easy and I’m going to walk you through it. In here, I’ve got some ground beef. So, I’ve got about a pound of ground beef. Now, this makes enough filling for about six big peppers. I’ve got four today. I’m going to use the filling that’s left over to stuff in some eggplant and zucchini that I got left over upstairs already cooked in the fridge. Um, and it’s so delicious. So, definitely use some leftovers in any way that you like if you don’t want to make all six peppers, but probably will cuz they’re really good and just filling and delicious. And this is the toughest bulb of garlic. Going to take me a second here. Look at the size of these cloves. Beautiful though, right? Look at that pink hue. Come on. Whoa, Nelly. That’s a big big big clove. So, let’s just do one. And I’m going to finally chop it once I get it peeled. Just finally chopping some mozzarella. Although this works really great with something like um provolone. I would just actually use a mild provolone because I don’t want anything too strong because if it’s too strong, it is going to take away from the flavor of all of this mixed with the flavor of the pepper that simmers for a while in a tomato sauce. It’s just so good. Good pinch of salt. Heavy handful of grated parm. And some rice. This is rice. I cooked it halfway. Okay, I cooked it for about 7 minutes. My, you know, my particular rice takes about 15 uh 16 minutes to cook. I cooked it halfway. And I’m just going to add that straight in. And now I’m going to go in here with clean hands and I’m going to mix everything together. Nope, we’re not adding any egg because this is not a meatball, which means we don’t need it to bind and hold together. It doesn’t need excess moisture because there’s going to be so much moisture that’s going to come out of the pepper and kind of the rice will absorb it as it cooks and it’s also going to simmer in sauce. So, it’s going to be very good. Let’s prep our peppers. These are the bell peppers that I’m going to be using. I like to go about a quarter of the way down and get the top off because I’m going to use the top as the lid to the peppers. I just make sure to get rid of any extra seeds that are at the top. And then I just use my knife to kind of cut around those seeds and then get them all out of there like that. Okay. And now because we want to make sure things are stable and they’re not going to flop around all over the place, I just make sure to cut like a little slit. Not cutting all the way through. Make sure your pepper is sitting nicely. That’s sitting nicely. It’s a bit, you know, lopsided as as a hole, I should say. So, it’s all good. I’m actually going to use a small bigger knife. You just want to make sure it sits. It doesn’t wobble. See? A little more. That’s better. And then I’m just going to cut the top off like that. You can also just go in here with your fingers. Just be careful because um if you’re using a knife, you don’t pierce through it. I’m going to continue to prep the rest of my peppers. Now, I’m just going to take my filling. I kind of go about till the pepper is pretty full. You see that? And it will expand as it cooks, but that’s what you have the the space in the lid for. You know, make sure you kind of make them as even as they were. And then what I like to do is to sometimes I find that if I don’t secure the top to the pepper, it kind of the top starts to fall off when they, you know, simmer. Um, and they just don’t look as pretty. So, what I like to do is I’ll show you. Get that filling in there like that. And then put the lid on. Make sure, like I said, you’re making it as evenly as it was. I’m trying to line it up. I think that’s probably No, that’s not it. Can’t get this lined up to save my own. Here we go. Here we go. And then what I do is I take a couple of toothpicks and I just go like this. See? Just to hold them down. And then when I go to serve them, I will just take those out. And what I like to do is what my mom does is you want to sear those peppers. Just sauté them a little bit. Give them a little bit of color. So, I’m going to put a couple of them at a time in my pot because I can’t fit all four of them if I’ve got to roll them around. And I’m just going to literally move them around until I get a little bit of color on them. Just, you know, creates extra layer of flavor. So, I’m going to do that and then I’ll show you what they look like when they’re there and move forward. Look at how beautiful they are. They smell so good already. And make sure you Oh, by the way, it depends apparently on how big your peppers are because these peppers were quite big and I was able to use all of the filling for those four peppers. When I made them last week, I ended up making almost eight of them because the peppers were smaller. So, just know that. Okay, I’m going to add some very thinly sliced yellow onion. I don’t even let this cook a whole lot. Don’t worry, it’s going to simmer and be so beautiful and gorgeous. And your house is going to smell so delicious. Like proper home food. When this cooks, it smells like smells like my mom. Really, my mom’s house. Then I’m going to add in a bottle of pata. And then I’m going to quote unquote rinse out the bottle halfway with water. I would typically just do this at the sink, but you know that you can’t see. Okay. Get that lid on there and get that in there. Now, even though it does have some rice in there, you do have options. I’m going to also come back in here later and add some basil. Um, no matter what, even though it has a little bit of rice in there, it’s not a lot. It’s actually just a half a cup of rice that I went ahead and cooked. Uh, my mom would always serve her peppers with bukatini. Bukatini that’s tossed into that sauce. Oh my goodness. You have not lived until you’ve had that. Okay, it’s delicious. I’m going to cover this. I’m going to add some basil in just a little bit. And I’m going to let it slowly simmer for like an hour. You don’t want to rush it. You just want to just let it simmer. Don’t mess with the peppers. Don’t turn them. No, nothing. Just leave them as is for like a good solid hour. And then I’ll show you what they look like. Look at how stunning these are. I let them cook for like an hour and 15 minutes. I turned them off maybe about 15 minutes ago cuz they were bubbling and they are stunning. When you serve them, make sure you take out the toothpicks. We don’t need to be munching on those. It smells so good. The sauce smells so good. I did add some basil. I did season it with salt. I’m just kind of surrounding the pepper. I’m going to open it up so that you can see the filling, but make sure you’re eating around the top. Actually, that may just fall apart. So, let’s just do it that way. Look at that. See how it puffs up? What did I say? Know how I told you it’s going to puff up, but you have the space in the lid that’s going to keep it intact. There you go. There is no perfect way to eat this. You kind of have to just break it apart. Look at the inside. It’s like a giant meatball. And there’s not enough There’s not like a ton of rice, so it’s not super starchy. There’s just enough to like hold absorb. Oh gosh. And then it soaks up all of that sauce and all of that like flavor from the filling. Hot. It’s so good. It’s so It’s so like melt in your mouth. Delicious. You have to make this. You have to make this. M. So good. Do it. Kitchen.com for the recipe. We’re going to spend time with me. I will see you in the next one. Bye-bye. [Music]