Italian Sausage Stuffed Peppers

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I posted a photo of these guys on my Instagram the other night, and saw a great response to them. This was a bottom of the refrigerator type night.  I didn’t really think about sharing the recipe, but after that response, I totally have to now.  Now when I say bottom of the refrigerator night, I don’t mean they weren’t delicious, because they totally were. I just mean I didn’t plan this one out.

I have to do this more. I have to just make something and share. I distinctly remember telling you about my perfectionist habits, and how I don’t share  recipes the first time around. This time I am going to break my rules, pull the band-aid off and share my recipe with Iphone photos and my bottom of the fridge ingredients.

Yup- the photo above is straight from my stove top. You can barely see the Yankee candle I have sitting on the stove top. Vanilla Cookie. What a great smell!

Below is a photo just after cutting into the steamy goodness! Don’t you love the yellow hue in my photo? Yeah we were eating dinner at roughly 9pm… pitch dark out. Over head lighting does wonders for photo lighting 🙂

I will stop babbling and leave you to the recipe!

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Italian Sausage Stuffed Peppers 

yields 6 servings 

  • 6 bell peppers (red, yellow or green), tops cut off, cleaned and hollowed out (I only had 4, but the mix really makes 6)
  • 2 cups  cooked white or brown rice, chilled (we always have cooked rice in our fridge. We are a 1/2 Asian house)
  • 2 cans diced tomatoes (I bought the rosemary & oregano version)
  • 2 small zucchini, grated
  • 1/2 lb ground Italian sausage or ground pork (I used ground pork)
  • 1 tablespoon garlic powder
  • 1 tsp oregano, dried
  • 1 tsp basil, dried
  • 1/4 cup shredded parmesan cheese
  • 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese (I used leftover Mexican mix cheddar)
  • 1 cup chicken or vegetable stock (I used water and chicken bullion, b/c it was what I had on hand)
  • Salt & Pepper
  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
  2. In a small saute pan, cook ground Italian sausage until fully cooked, breaking into small chunks while cooking.  Drain off any excess oil.
  3. In a large bowl, mix together grated zucchini, rice, diced tomatoes with juices, Italian sausage and seasonings. Add salt and pepper to preferred taste.
  4. Stuffed cleaned and hollowed peppers with rice mixture. Test to see if your peppers can stand up in the pan on their own. If not, trim the rounded bottoms slightly without putting a hole in the pepper, to ensure they sit flat in the pan. Place each stuffed pepper upright in a 8×8 glass baking pan.
  5. Mix together cheeses, and top each pepper with equal portions of the cheese.
  6. Pour chicken or vegetable stock into the bottom of the pan to keep peppers from burning, and help add steam to your oven to help cook peppers.
  7. Bake prepared peppers at 350 degrees for 40-50 mins or until peppers start to soften. Serve hot.

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