This is a classic Vegan Stuffed Peppers with rice recipe, which I have been making whenever I crave something lighter.
These stuffed savory peppers can be also served as a side dish with a main course meal of your choice.
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You are going to love these stuffed peppers (aka paprika or capsicum in Europe) if you like plant-based meatless meals.
These vegan stuffed peppers with rice are also gluten-free.
To make them low-carb/keto, switch the regular rice to low carb friendly rice.
To prepare the stuffed vegan bell peppers you will need a few common ingredients and about 30 minutes prepping time.
The peppers take about 50 minutes roasting time in the oven. In that time the peppers get soft and gain on flavor from the rice filling.
Ingredients
You will need the following main ingredients to prepare these tasty savory vegan stuffed peppers.
Keep in mind that you can always adjust the recipe with the seasoning to prepare different stuffed peppers with rice variations.
For the rice filling, I use simply basmati rice because it's quite flavorful.
You can also use short grain rice variations such as risotto rice if you prefer or if you have this in your pantry.
The best part of this recipe is that you can use up leftover rice too, to prepare this stuffing for your peppers.
Pick your favorite bell pepper color.
I usually prefer red or yellow bell peppers because they are sweeter compared to the green peppers.
This is totally up to you. Keep in mind too that red and yellow peppers tend to be slightly more pricey compared to green peppers if you are looking to save on money to prepare this delicious plant-based dish.
The stuffing for the rice includes a tomato sauce as well, which is prepared in a frying pan before you stuff the peppers.
I fry onions and garlic soft, which are seasoned with oregano, black pepper, salt, and fresh basil leaves.
You can also add pizza seasoning blend, Italian seasoning or Cajun seasoning to pep up things!
I also add tomato sauce to the onion and seasoning in the pan.
This tomato sauce is then mixed into the cooked rice to create the pepper stuffing.
Serving
- Feta and Arugula Salad (if you are not vegan)
- Everyday Green Salad with Simple Vinaigrette Dressing
- Cold Green Bean Salad
Dear Reader, How are you going to enjoy these stuffed vegan peppers? On their own as a meatless meal or as a side dish?
Please feel free to share your thoughts and ideas with us in the comment section further below!
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📖 Recipe
Vegan Stuffed Peppers Recipe with Rice Recipe
Ingredients
- ¾ cups Basmati Rice
- 2 Tablespoon Olive Oil
- 1 Onion sliced
- 1 Tablespoon Garlic finely chopped
- 1 ½ Tablespoon Oregano
- ¼ Teaspoon Black Pepper
- ⅔ cup Tomato Sauce
- ½ Teaspoon Salt
- 1 Tablespoon Basil leaves freshly chopped
- 4 Bell Pepper aka Capsicum/Paprika *see Notes
- some more olive oil to drizzle over stuffed peppers.
Instructions
- Cook the rice soft, strain and keep aside.
- Heat up a pan and add the oil and sliced onions. Fry your onions and then add the garlic as well to fry. Cook till done.
- Season with oregano and black pepper. Stir cook for a minute on medium heat.
- Pour in the tomato paste and add the salt and chopped basil leaves as well. Mix it all well and let it cook for about 3 minutes.
- Take the sauce from the heat.
- In a bowl add the previously cooked rice and the tomato sauce that you just cooked. Mix it all together. This will be your filling.
- Preheat your oven to 350 Fahrenheit/ 180 Celsius.
- Wash your bell peppers well. Cut off the top hat part and take out the seed pods.
- Arrange the peppers in a casserole dish. Stuff the peppers with the rice tomato sauce mixture. Stuff the peppers as much as possible so that all the filling is used up. Then cover the bell peppers with the hat.
- Drizzle some of the olive oil over the peppers.
- Cook the vegan stuffed peppers in the oven for about 50 mins or until done. (*seen notes for oven setting).
- Serve hot as a main dish or as a side dish.
Notes
- You can choose whichever bell pepper you prefer. I like to use yellow or red ones. Just make sure that they are of the same size so that they cook evenly.
- Set your oven for baking but without the grilling option because the hats tend to burn and get black when the grilling option is turned on as well. If you can't turn off the grilling option, then just keep the hats off for the first 35 mins of cooking in the oven and place the hats on the peppers for the remaining baking time.
Just made these as directed with basmati rice. I made it for my vegan husband who was born and raised in Bangalore (so he’s got a very different palate than this Italian lol) and we both loved it! Usually he likes some sort of hot sauce or condiment with rices but not this time!
One note for some, I have a gas oven so I kept the tops off like instructed (definitely a good move) and continued for 15 mins at 350 after putting them on. But did have to crank up the heat after that to 375 for 5 minutes then 400 for another 5 minutes to get them just right!
Excellent! Thank you!
Awesome! Thanks so much for sharing this with us. The heat depends a lot on the oven, so your feedback will come handy to others too. 🙂
I don't think the amount of filling this recipe makes is not nearly enough to fill 4 peppers! I could have used TWICE the filling to "stuff" these peppers. A bit disappointing.
Hi Meg, I'm sorry that the recipe didn't work the way you expected. I don't know the size of your peppers. The ones in the video and photos are about tennis ball size. How big are your peppers?
This was our dinner a few nights ago...stuffed vegetables, a classic Greek dish, with a few variations...you can stuff other vegetables too, like eggplant & potatoes.
I have to say that the herbs & garlic in this dish makes it absolutely delicious... served with crunchy fresh bread & Greek Tarama dip...we definitely enjoyed it... yuuummm, scrumptious 🍅🍆🌶🥖👏👏👌👌
Hi Zoe, thanks for your feedback and the delicious food ideas, I'm going to try it out with greek tarama dip soon! 🙂
Hi, I was wondering if I could use a can of chopped tomatoes in this recipe. I have no tomato sauce but guess it’s The same thing?
Hi Jane, yes you can try to use chopped tomatoes. It should work well if the tomatoes are chopped small.
I’m making this recipe now and have discovered a few mistakes (I think). Tomato paste and sauce are shown throughout the recipe but your video shows sauce, the temperature in Fahrenheit is supposed to be 350 degrees if it’s 180 C. It smells really yummy. I added chickpeas for some added protein. I’ll let you know the results.
Hi Scott,
Tomato Paste is Tomato Sauce where I come from. Sorry for the confusion. Plain Tomato Sauce (Marinara Sauce) is correct. Thanks for letting me know about the Fahrenheit typo, fixed it!