Stuffed Peppers With Ground Turkey or Beef
This stuffed peppers with ground turkey recipe is a quick and easy gluten-free weeknight dinner option that tastes absolutely delicious!
This is my mother’s recipe for stuffed peppers with ground turkey or beef and boy are they good. A meal in and of itself, stuffed peppers are classic comfort food, no matter which way you look at it. This stuffed peppers recipe is so simple and uses mostly pantry staples. Plus, it’s gluten-free!
To make life even easier, you can make these ahead of time right up to the point of putting them in the oven. Simply cover the turkey stuffed peppers with foil or cling wrap and refrigerate until you’re ready to bake them. This would be a great meal to prep on Sunday for a busy night later in the week. Quick, easy, delicious – what more could you want, right?
Recipe Ingredients
- Tomato soup
- Cheese
- Chili powder
- Chopped garlic
- Cooked rice
- Onion
- Ground turkey or ground beef
- Peppers
- Salt and black pepper
Begin by filling a pot deep enough to submerge the peppers in with water and add a teaspoon of salt. Put this over medium-high heat and bring it to a boil while you prepare the filling.
Peel and chop your onion.
Place your onions and garlic in a skillet. Cook over medium heat until onion is lightly browned.
Normally you would add your ground meat along with this and cook until browned, but I usually pre-brown my ground beef and freeze it so it is already cooked.
When those get cooked a bit, move on to the next step.
Add in tomato soup.
Did y’all see that post I did on Simple And Delicious Tomato Soup?
Add in cooked ground turkey or beef…
Stir in all of your seasonings and your cooked rice.
Stir it up a bit. Reduce heat to low and let simmer for about ten minutes.
Meanwhile, rinse your bell peppers under water and cut the tops off.
Use a spoon to scoop out the seeds.
Drop them in the boiling water and boil them for about five minutes.
Carefully remove with tongs.
Stir cheese into the ground turkey or beef and rice mixture.
Spray an 8×8 baking dish with cooking spray.
Place peppers inside and stuff with beef or turkey mixture.
Top with additional shredded cheese and place in a 350-degree oven for ten minutes.
When I make stuffed peppers, that’s supper! Nothing else needed.
ENJOY!
Recipe Notes
- You can easily swap the rice for quinoa in this stuffed pepper recipe for something different. For a lower-carb option, try frozen cauliflower rice.
- To make this recipe even lighter, use less cheese or replace it with reduced-fat cheddar cheese.
- If you’re making this recipe around the holidays, you can also swap the lean ground turkey for leftover roast turkey.
- If you want to just prepare the filling in advance, you can store it in an airtight container in the fridge for two days or in the freezer for up to three months.
Storage
You can store leftovers in an airtight container in the fridge for up to four days.
Recipe FAQs
What do you serve with stuffed peppers?
While they’re great on their own, I also think they taste great when served with salad. For some tasty salad options, check out this tomato, onion, and cucumber salad, summer corn salad, or my favorite Greek salad.
Ingredients
- 1 lb ground turkey or beef
- 1 small onion chopped
- 1 tsp chopped garlic
- 2 tsp chili powder
- 1 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp pepper
- 1 can tomato soup
- 1 cup cheddar cheese plus more to sprinkle on top
- 1 cup cooked rice
- 4 medium-sized bell peppers
Instructions
- Fill a large pot with water. Add a teaspoon of salt and set over medium high heat to bring to a boil.
- Chop onion. In a large skillet, brown hamburger meat, chopped onion, and garlic until hamburger meat is browned. Drain off grease. Add spices, soup, and rice to the beef mixture. Stir well. Simmer for ten minutes.
- While that is simmering, wash peppers and remove tops. Scoop out seeds with a spoon. Drop bell peppers into boiling water and boil for five minutes. Carefully remove with tongs.
- Spray 8x8 pan with nonstick cooking spray. Place peppers upright inside. Add one cup cheese to beef and rice mixture and stir until melted. Spoon into peppers. Top with additional cheese.
- Bake at 350 for ten minutes.
Video
Nutrition
You may also like these stuffed recipes:
Cornbread Stuffed Bell Pepper Rings: National Cornbread Finalist Recipe!
Low Carb Lasagna Stuffed Chicken
Thanks for the recipe! I have an econo bag of peppers that need to be used and my husband loves stuffed peppers. I could look up a recipe, but it’s more fun when they come to you!
Well! ~hmmmphh~ I never! Just for your information, Miss Missy, I DO like me some of that there Stuffed Bell Pepper and have eeeeeven made them on occasion. So, this “unable-to-handle-hot-spices” gal can and will follow your lovely, easy directions, just leaving out the spicy part. Hopefully, your sweet Mama Janice ~waves~ won’t mind too terribly much, as you might explain to her how you brought me closer to death than I have seen yet with Hot Sauce while we all ate at Greenbriar BBQ. Girlfriend, I had a lovely trip to your Bountiful home, lovely Alabama towns and would love to sit at your table again and eat anything thing you make for me…..’cept spicy bell peppers. ~grins~ ~winks~
Thank you SistaC for another great recipe and your time for all us SP folks that takes away from your family time. Oh, and I adore onions!!! Sorry Ricky! Love ya! T.
Just to be clear….I am joking around in my above comment. ~snickers~
Yum, one of my hubby’s favs when we go out…be nice to have them at home. Thanks Christy 🙂
Boy…I hate to sound totally stupid but I’ve been in the military so long that I’ve learned when given directions for something the requires precision, like a recipe, you should follow it. However, because in my career field there are NO directions for some of the things we do, we need to be able to use our brains on occasion. Having said that, I may in fact be using my brain yet shutting it down at the same time.
Now, you’re sitting there wondering what the heck I’m talking about, aren’t you? lol Ok, I’ll get to it now. Your directions tell us to put the rice in with the beef yet, being the impatient male I am, I didn’t bother to read the ingredients before that so I was thinking, “Uncooked rice with the meat? Won’t you need to simmer that for a long time? Or is it going to cook in the oven? That picture doesn’t look like it’s dry!” And so on. Of course your ingredients lists COOKED rice!!! Imagine my embarrassment when I read that! lol Even so, I just had to share with you what a nincompoop some of us can be out here! lol
I do have one question though…what would be the net effect if I didn’t boil the peppers first? I’ve never liked stuffed peppers because of the sliminess of the peppers and I was just thinking that perhaps if they weren’t boiled first they wouldn’t be so…YECH. Opinion?
And finally, thanks again for always making me laugh. I was chuckling a little here and there in your story anyway but when I saw the struck-out line at the bottom I just had to laugh out loud. I know exactly what you mean. When making something I am very fond of I will usually make a little bit extra and set it to the side so I will have some left to eat when the kids are done! lol
Thanks again and good luck with your book, PR people and your contest!!
I don’t parboil my peppers first. They come out nice and tender-crisp, not slimy at all. I just increase the cooking time a little bit, about 30 minutes or so, uncovered.
Hi Christy! Do you think you could post your recipe for stuffed bell peppers soon? Thanks so much!
You could try this idea. When I don’t have peppers but am in the mood for this, I just make them without peppers. I form the meat mixture into balls and pour tomato sauce over them and bake. I have always called them “Porcupine Balls” but you can call them whatever you like.
Sometimes if I only have 1 pepper on hand, I dice that up and include it in with the meat.
Still tastes the same.
Good comfort food.
Thanks Christy
I don’t boil my peppers. I just stuff them use tomato soup or spaghetti sauce and bake them in the oven
Hey! Stuffed Peppers! Dads Favorite! You Rock! Thanks sister-o-mine. I haven’t made those in a long time and it’s about time I do. Hug your mama for me for the recipe.
Hope everything is going well..I’m so happy for you, Ricky and the kids.
P.S If your book tour doesn’t come somewhere near my house, your gonna make my bottom lip poke in and out. I know you don’t wanna be responsible for that.
Yum! My hubby likes stuffed pepper, but I have never made them or had them before. So I am going to make these very soon! Maybe tonight!Gonna have to go get some bell pepper, but that’s ok! Thank you Christy for more main dishes, that is what I usually look for unless I’m in a baking mood! ^_^
Your friend,
Vickie
Very similar to how I make stuffed peppers but I have not used the cheese. I generally pass around sour cream as the topper. I will give these a try when pepper prices are more in line with my grocery budget. They are rather high in the winter in my area.
I just use left over spaghetti sauce (homemade of course), combine it with white or yellow rice (the kids choose), boil them peppers as shown, stuff them, place in the oven with cheese, get two nights of meals for one night of cooking. It works for me.
I like this idea!
I meant to add the little tip I have for baking stuffed peppers. Place them in muffin tins that have ben sprayed with Pam. They will sit upright and not fall over and lose their “innards”.
Excellent tip!
Well, here it is ten years later and I was coming to the comments to say the exact same thing. I use the tins for the megamuffins. Works great.
These are delicious! I also sometimes serve it as a casserole by chopping up the peppers instead of stuffing them. Same ingredients. Just put it all in a dish and heat it up. Yummy!!I love your recipes so much. Some of them remind me of my grandma!!