Serves: 8
Prep Time: 20 minutes
Cooking Time: 1 hour
Total Time: 1 hour 20 minutes
Ingredients
- 8 large bell peppers
Rice and Meat Filling
- 1 lb ground beef or sub ground chicken, turkey or plant-based meat
- 1 1/2 cups rice I used Jasmine rice
- 1 yellow onion diced
- 1 tbsp tomato paste
- 1 tbsp date syrup
- 1 large carrot grated
- 1 roma tomato finely diced
- Handful parsley chopped
- 1 tbsp paprika
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp black pepper
- 1/2 tsp cumin
- 1/4 tsp turmeric
Tomato Sauce
- 15 oz can crushed tomatoes
- 3 cups boiling water
- 2 tbsp date syrup
- 2 tsp paprika
- 1 1/4 tsp salt
- 1 tsp black pepper
- 3 tbsp olive oil
Directions
- Heat a large dutch oven on medium heat and drizzle in about 2 tbsp olive oil. Add in the diced onion and saute for 5 minutes.
- Add in the ground meat and break apart. Add in the spices, rice, diced tomatoes, tomato paste, grated carrots, parsley and date syrup and cook over medium/high heat for 5 minutes, then remove the pan from the flame. The meat does not need to be cooked through, this is just a rough saute.
- Slice off the tops of your peppers and scoop out the seeds. Stuff the peppers 3/4 of the way to the top with the rice/meat mix. Place the peppers back into the pot you cooked the meat and rice with. Any remaining rice filling can be added directly to the pot between the peppers. You can add the tops back onto the peppers if desired.
- Prepare the sauce by whisking together the crushed tomatoes, spices, water, date syrup and olive oil. Pour over the peppers, making sure to spoon some into the peppers and around.
- Cover the pot and bring it to a boil, then reduce the flame to simmer. Cook on a low flame for 45 minutes.
- Preheat the oven to 425 F.
- Spoon some sauce over each pepper, then place the pot uncovered into the oven for about 15-20 minutes. The peppers should be tender, and rice should be fully cooked through.
- Serve warm with your favorite sides.
- Leftovers can be refrigerated and reheated for up to 5 days.