Stuffed peppers are awesome! You can stuff them with just about anything. Here are a a few tricks to make prepping them quick and easy!
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How to Prep a Perfect Pepper!
Here's how to prep a bell pepper for stuffing, quickly and easily! All you'll need is a cutting board, a very sharp knife, and a melon ball scoop or small spring scoop.
Lay the pepper on its side on the cutting board. You only want to do a very small slice, just enough to get a flat bottom.
Here's a slice taken off the bottom of the pepper. Be careful not to cut into the body of the pepper! You don't want a hole in the bottom that could let the stuffing leak out. This is why you want a really sharp knife!
Kitchen Tip: Here's a suggestion from one of our readers. If you do slice too much off the bottom of the pepper, put the piece you sliced off inside the pepper! It will seal the bottom and keep it from leaking!
Your pepper can stand up on it's own, yay! That will make it easier to stuff, and to arrange in the baking dish.
Now slice the top off the pepper.
This time you do want to cut into the body of the pepper!
Scoop out that center part that has most of the seeds on it.
Then scrape out the white membranes and any loose seeds.
There's your perfectly clean pepper!
And those slices from the top and bottom of the pepper? Don't throw those away! Chop them up and mix them into the stuffing! (Don't use the center part with the stem!)
How to Pack Your Peppers
You can cook stuffed peppers in a different types of containers, depending on the number and size of peppers you're making. Here are some that I've used.
I usually stand them on end in a 9x13 baking dish. Here are six peppers in a glass dish. If your peppers are thinner you might be able to fit eight!
You can also slice peppers in half vertically and cook them on their sides. Here are six peppers in the same glass dish. (Try to imagine them as three peppers cut in half—I'll post a new picture next time I make them that way.)
Note that if you cook your peppers this way, you don't need to slice the bottom off, and you should leave the tops on so the filling doesn't spill out.
Here are five peppers in a round glass casserole dish.
And here are five peppers in a bundt pan! With this more of the pepper is evenly exposed to the heat of the pan, and you don't have to slice the bottoms off.
Pre-Cook Your Peppers!
Here's an extra tip: pre-cook the peppers in the microwave before you stuff them! This softens them so you don't have to cook them as long. Of course, if you like a crunchy pepper you can just fill them and cook them.
I put them in the microwave for 10 minutes while I'm preparing the stuffing, so it doesn't add anything to the cook time.
(If you're using a bundt pan to cook the peppers, don't microwave them in the pan! Use a microwave-safe container!)
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How to Prep Bell Peppers for Stuffed Peppers
Equipment
- 1 Cutting board
- 1 Chef knife (a really sharp knife works best)
- 1 Melon baller or spring scoop
Instructions
- Lay a pepper on its side on the cutting board and cut off a very small slice from the bottom. Now you can stand the pepper up on end!
- Slice the top off the pepper.
- Use the melon baller to scoop out the white membranes and seeds.
- You've got a perfectly cleaned pepper, ready to stuff!
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