Stuffed Peppers with Quinoa, Grilled Vegetables and Pesto Sauce Recipe (2024)
by Jeanette22 Comments
Stuffed Peppers with Quinoa, Grilled Vegetables and Pesto Sauce is a healthy vegetarian main course that will brighten up any dinner.
Stuffed Pepper with Quinoa, Grilled Vegetables, Caprese Salad and Pesto Sauce
This week on Food Network’s Summer Fest, a group of talented bloggers are featuring farm fresh recipes using Peppers that are in season. Each week, recipes using farm fresh produce will be featured on the Food Network website along with recipes by a group of fabulous food bloggers. During the summer, I love taking full advantage of all the fresh vegetables at the local farmer’s market as well as my weekly CSA Box supply. With the plethora of zucchini, summer squash, eggplant and peppers, I’ve been grilling vegetables a lot lately.
In fact, I like to make a big batch so quick lunches can be thrown together. Lately, I’ve also been keeping a stash of cooked quinoa in the refrigerator as a protein rich whole grain to toss into salads (technically, quinoa is a seed). I also have been making lots of pesto this summer so usually there’s a jar of some variety of pesto in my refrigerator as well.
This Stuffed Pepper recipe is very loosely a recipe. It’s more of an assembly of ingredients, and in this case, a great way to use up leftover grilled vegetables and some caprese salad from the weekend. Just a few melted mini mozzarella balls and some Pesto Sauce on top make this stuffed pepper a real treat. These stuffed peppers would make a nice meatless lunch or dinner. To learn more about the health benefits of bell peppers, check out my Bell Pepper Power Foods Post.
During the summer, I grill extra zucchini and summer squash so I have extras for lunch and quick meals. This is a great way to use up leftover grilled vegetables. I happened to have leftover caprese salad from the weekend, so I tossed that in as well.
Prep Time10minutes
Cook Time10minutes
Total Time20minutes
Servings2
Ingredients
1red bell pepper
1cupcooked quinoa
1/2cupchopped grilled vegetables
1/2cupcherry tomato capreseor a few mini mozzarella balls and some chopped tomatoes
1tablespoonpesto
olive oilto brush pepper
Pesto Sauce
1tablespoonpesto
a squeeze of lemon juice
water to thin dressing
Instructions
Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
Cut pepper in half and remove membranes and seeds.
In a small bowl, toss together cooked quinoa, grilled vegetables, cherry tomato caprese and pesto. Divide stuffing between red bell pepper halves, making sure mozzarella cheese balls are on top so they melt.
Bake for 10 minutes or until stuffing is heated through and cheese melts.
To make Pesto Sauce, mix pesto, lemon juice and water to achieve desired consistency.
Drizzle stuffed peppers with Pesto Sauce before serving.
You can also pre-cook them in the oven before they're filled. Preheat your oven to the temperature recommended by the recipe, place them in the oven until they are tender, then fill and return the stuffed peppers to the oven for the remainder of the cooking time.
The bell pepper is the fruit of plants in the Grossum Group of the species Capsicum annuum. Cultivars of the plant produce fruits in different colors, including red, yellow, orange, green, white, chocolate, candy cane striped, and purple.
If you bake peppers this way, they will take longer to cook and will hold their shape better. If you blanch the peppers and stuff them with raw ingredients, they could become too soft and fall apart during baking. So it's easier to stuff blanched peppers with an already-cooked mixture.
No Moisture In, No Moisture Out. Following the logic of precooking your peppers to safeguard against sogginess, you should also avoid watery ingredients in your stuffing. Let's say your filling calls for tomato sauce. Rather than spooning it directly into your hollowed peppers, reduce it on the stove until it's thick.
Seasoning. Peppers can be quite bland on their own so seasoning the inside of the cavity with salt is very important. Be sure to taste your stuffing prior to filling the peppers and make any adjustments there as well.
The chile relleno, literally "stuffed pepper", consists of a roasted and peeled/skinned green pasilla or poblano pepper stuffed with cheese (traditionally queso fresco) and, occasionally, minced meat, covered in an egg batter, and fried.
I definitely suggest par-cooking the bell peppers first, just a little bit before stuffing them. Not only does this help to soften the bell peppers, but it also cuts down on your cook time. As the bell peppers are cooking you can make the filling, shaving off about 20 minutes from your total cook time.
Absolutely!The bell pepper skin is edible and adds a nice texture to the dish. It also helps hold the filling together. However, if you prefer a softer texture, you can peel the skin off before eating.
I think the key to stuffed peppers is the cooking of the pepper itself. If you pre-cook it, then once you fill it, it tends to be soggy and fall apart. I like my stuffed peppers to hold their shape and be hot all the way through but retain a little bit of crunch.
You can use any color of bell peppers to make this recipe—it's fun to have a mixture of two or three colors. These stuffed peppers are low in carbohydrates and high in protein and provide plenty of vitamin C, calcium, and iron.
Cook them quickly at 400°F for 20 minutes, although you should always test your meat with an instant read thermometer (160ºF for a stuffing containing ground beef and 165ºF for a stuffing containing ground chicken, ground turkey or pieces of chicken). For softer peppers you can bake at 350°F for 35-40 minutes.
Bell peppers, whether raw or cooked, are packed with vitamin C and various antioxidants. Eating them raw provides maximum vitamin C content, but cooking bell peppers can increase the availability of other nutrients. Roasting or grilling bell peppers enhances their natural sweetness and offers a delightful flavor.
Peppers' flavor and texture can be altered in a variety of ways during cooking. The natural sweetness of peppers can be enhanced through cooking, which can also lessen their bitterness and soften their texture for a more tender and palatable result.
I recommend prepping peppers daily and using left overs as soon as possible the following day. By day three they're trash. If you chop the peppers, shock them in ice water and then spin them dry, they will retain quality for a little over two days, but I prefer not to hold them for that length of time.
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This Stuffed Pepper recipe is very loosely a recipe. It’s more of an assembly of ingredients, and in this case, a great way to use up leftover grilled vegetables and some caprese salad from the weekend. Just a few melted mini mozzarella balls and some Pesto Sauce on top make this stuffed pepper a real treat.
These stuffed peppers would make a nice meatless lunch or dinner. To learn more about the health benefits of bell peppers, check out my Bell Pepper Power Foods Post.
