BBQ Beef Stuffed Peppers

by Sabrina Snyder

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20 Comments

5 from 6 votes
6 servings
Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 1 hour
Total Time 1 hour 15 minutes
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BBQ Beef Stuffed peppers with ground beef, homemade bbq sauce, vegetables, topped with cheese makes the perfect healthy yet kid-friendly meal.

Classic Stuffed Peppers are one of the most popular recipes on the site, and for good reason! They’re healthy, delicious, and make the perfect re-heatable meal for your work lunch the next day. This recipe combines stuffed peppers with the flavors of my Slow Cooker BBQ Beef Sandwiches.

Sabrina’s BBQ Beef Stuffed Peppers

Stuffed Peppers is one of my favorite recipes to make for our family (and for clients) because it is a self-contained perfect meal. I also made BBQ Beef Sloppy Joes and BBQ Sausage Sloppy Joes, which you may want to look at as the weather is warming. Those would both be great for easy summer meals.

Recipe Card

Dinner, then Dessert

BBQ Beef Stuffed Peppers Recipe

BBQ Beef Stuffed peppers with ground beef, homemade bbq sauce, vegetables, topped with cheese makes the perfect healthy yet kid-friendly meal.
Yield 6 servings
Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 1 hour
Total Time 1 hour 15 minutes
Course Main Course
Cuisine American
Author Sabrina Snyder
Barbecue Stuffed Green Pepper in a pan
PrintRate

Ingredients
 

  • 1  pound  ground beef , 85/15
  • 2  tablespoons  vegetable oil
  • 1  yellow onion , diced
  • 1 clove garlic , minced
  • 1 1/2  cups  instant white rice (or half cooked plain white rice)
  • 1  cup  water
  • 2  cups  tomato sauce
  • 1  cup  brown sugar , packed
  • 1/2  teaspoon  dry mustard
  • 2  tablespoons  apple cider vinegar
  • 1  tablespoon  Worcestershire sauce
  • 1/2  teaspoon  kosher salt
  • 1/4  teaspoon  coarse ground black pepper
  • 2  cups  beef broth
  • 6  bell peppers
  • 3/4 cup cheddar cheese , shredded

Instructions

  • Preheat oven to 350 degrees and heat a large skillet on medium-high heat.
  • Add beef and onions to the skillet, breaking it apart as it cooks (about 4-5 minutes), then remove it from the skillet and drain the fat.
  • To make the BBQ sauce, add the tomato sauce, brown sugar, mustard, vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, salt, and pepper to pan and bring to a boil before removing 1 cup of it.
  • Add in the garlic, rice, and water, along with the ground beef, back into the pan and mix it all together.
  • Add 2 cups of beef broth along with the bbq sauce you reserved to the bottom of your baking dish.
  • Add the bell pepper halves to a baking dish and fill with the mixture, top with cheese and bake for 45 minutes wrapped tightly with foil.

Nutrition

Calories: 707kcal | Carbohydrates: 102g | Protein: 25g | Fat: 23g | Saturated Fat: 8g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 4g | Monounsaturated Fat: 7g | Trans Fat: 1g | Cholesterol: 66mg | Sodium: 1026mg | Potassium: 888mg | Fiber: 5g | Sugar: 47g | Vitamin A: 4213IU | Vitamin C: 160mg | Calcium: 192mg | Iron: 7mg

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About this Recipe

You are probably looking at this recipe and seeing cheese and bbq sauce and wondering why I am calling it healthy. It is in fact a very healthy recipe to add to your weekly rotation because stuffed peppers are a well-balanced meal on their own (much like people like to refer to a vegetable combination pizza as the perfectly balanced meal). This is due to the starch in the rice, nutrients from the vegetables, protein from the meat, and dairy from the cheese.

Alternate Cooking Methods

  • In the Microwave: By microwaving your cleaned and halved peppers on a plate covered with a wet paper towel for five minutes, you can bake it in the oven for half the time and use pre-cooked rice in this preparation.
  • Parboiling: Some people like to boil the bell peppers before stuffing and baking them. Be aware this will cause a loss in vitamins, this method is not recommended.
  • On the Stovetop: You’ll need a high quality, heavy bottomed skillet and make sure you never let the skillet go dry. The peppers should be covered tightly while they cook, but I would suggest using pre-cooked rice in this cooking method (which will take only 20 minutes).
  • In the Slow Cooker: Add all the ingredients as you would below, but I suggest cutting the tops off the peppers and stuffing from the top of the pepper. Cook on low for 4 hours.

Variations

  • Beef: If you don’t want to use ground beef in this recipe you can swap it out for ground turkey or chicken. To give the leaner proteins a good sear I’d recommend just a bit of oil in your skillet first to form a good crust on the meat before breaking it apart.
  • Vegetables: If you’d like to keep the stuffed peppers vegetarian, just add more vegetables to the mixture in place of the meat. I love adding zucchini, sweet potato, carrots, cauliflower or any other well roasted or cooked vegetable. Be sure not to add the vegetables into the mixture raw as they’ll stay crunchy by the time the bell peppers are done cooking.
  • Rice: If you want to swap out the rice you can use quinoa, couscous, or any other small shape pasta in it’s place. If you would like to use brown rice or wild rice in place of the white rice be sure to either cook it ahead of time, cook it 90% of the way (if you’re concerned about it overcooking), or use instant brown rice. Do not use uncooked brown or wild rice, it will be raw when the bell peppers are finished cooking.

More Delicious Stuffed Pepper Recipes

BBQ Peppers with Beef and Cheese in collage

About the Author: Sabrina Snyder

Sabrina is a professionally trained Private Chef of over 10 years with ServSafe Manager certification in food safety. She creates all the recipes here on Dinner, then Dessert, fueled in no small part by her love for bacon.

Sabrina Snyder is a professionally trained personal and private chef of over 10 years who is the creator and developer of all the recipes on Dinner, then Dessert.

She is also the author of the cookbook Dinner, then Dessert – Satisfying Meals Using Only 3, 5 or 7 Ingredients, published by Harper Collins.

She started Dinner, then Dessert as a business in her office as a lunch service for her coworkers who admired her lunches before going to culinary school and becoming a full time personal chef and private chef.

As a personal chef Sabrina would cook for families one day a week and cook their entire week of dinners. All grocery shopping, cooking and cleaning was done along with instructions on reheating. As a private chef she cooked for private parties and cooked in family homes in the evenings for families on a nightly basis after working as a personal chef during the day.

Sabrina has been certified as a ServSafe Manager since 2007 and was a longstanding member of the USPCA Personal Chef Association including being on the board of the Washington DC Chapter of Chefs in the US Personal Chef Association when they won Chapter of the year.

As a member of the community of food website creators Sabrina Snyder has spoken at many conferences regarding her experiences as a food writer including the Indulge Food Conference, Everything Food Conference, Haven Food Conference and IACP Annual Food Professionals Conference.

Sabrina lives with her family in sunny California.

See more posts by Sabrina

Dinner, then Dessert, Inc. owns the copyright on all images and text and does not allow for its original recipes and pictures to be reproduced anywhere other than at this site unless authorization is given. Read my disclosure and copyright policy. This post may contain affiliate links.

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Comments

  1. Deeelicious! Husband raved about them! He said it was the best stuffed bell pepper he ever tasted. One question, do you need to add the water in the beef/sauce mixture if you are using cooked rice? I would not add the water again, it would have been better without it.

    Reply

  2. I will be making this on Thursday this week. I can’t wait. Looks so awesome. Thank you for the Recipe!!!

    Reply

  4. Holy shmoly these look AWESOME! I can imagine wrapping these up in foil and then grilling them on a grill during the summer barbeque. Definitely making this soon! One question is can there be rice in these too?

    Reply

  6. We also always prefer vegetable pizza as I’m always looking for ways to add a little something healthy in my kids diet. This sounds so perfect!

    Reply

  7. I’ve made stuffed peppers before but never with a BBQ flavor. I love this idea. Stuffed peppers are like a complete meal and I love how you can change up the flavors very easily.

    Reply

  8. mmmm These look amazing! And I love that they are simmering in beef broth as well. I feel like this will give the peppers an extra taste of deliciousness. Can’t wait to try! 🙂

    Reply

  10. Wow, this looks delicious (and surprisingly easy)! Thanks for including instructions for adapting these stuffed peppers to be vegetarian… I’d definitely load them up with roasted veggies, and maybe even a soy-based meatless crumble for the same beefy texture. YUM! I love it!

    Reply