This post contains affiliate links. When you purchase through our links, we may earn a commission.
I am so happy I can share my lean stuffed peppers with you! This recipe combines beautiful fresh peppers with a savoury meat mixture, all swimming in a luscious creamy tomato sauce. So good it’s hard to believe that this is such a lean meal!
Love what we have cooking here? Try my Italian Stuffed Peppers!
We might not be experiencing the hottest or the busiest summer as I talked about it here but what we are enjoying is a never ending glut of glorious summer produce. A bag of peppers for under £1. Yes, please! I know just the recipe for them!
Stuffed peppers is one of the classic Russian recipes. I grew up absolutely loving my mom’s creation, which I often cook for my family. Today I took a few liberties with the original recipe and lightened it up a bit. I have to say the result wasn’t just lighter, it was better because what I ended up with is healthy stuffed peppers!
Stuffed pepper filling
Usually I use a mixture of lean beef, pork and rice for stuffing peppers and cook them in a thick sour cream and tomato sauce. The result is lovelier than lovely but who is to say it can’t be improved.
Summer living often calls for lighter eating, so I replaced beef with shredded zucchini and minced parsley and rice with millet, a naturally gluten-free grain I grew up eating and really loving lately again. Don’t worry if you can’t find millet, you can use rice or couscous.
Instead of cooking peppers in a deep This is an affiliate link.Dutch oven swimming in a rich sauce, I opted for a shallow This is an affiliate link.roasting pan with the sauce barely covering the bottom.
It still added incredible flavour but cut calories in more than half plus you get these beautiful, slightly charred and caramelised peppers that have been roasted in the oven at high temperature. Delicious!
My entire family was very impressed and never did they guess that they were eating healthy stuffed peppers!
More stuffed vegetable recipes
- Harissa stuffed eggplant
- Stuffed Bell Peppers with Smoky Paprika Sauce
- Spaghetti Squash Bolognese
- Spinach and Artichoke Stuffed Spaghetti Squash
Herby Pork, Zucchini and Millet Stuffed Peppers
Equipment
- This is an affiliate link.Food processor
- This is an affiliate link.Roasting pan
Ingredients
For the sauce
- 1 tbsp This is an affiliate link.olive oil
- 2 onions, chopped, divided
- 400 g/14 oz caned chopped or crushed tomatoes
- 1/2 cup/125 ml sour cream or creme fraiche
- 1 cup/250 ml chicken stock
- salt
- pepper
For the peppers
- 7-8 medium red and yellow bell peppers, split in half and cored
- 1 1/2 lbs/750 g extra-lean ground pork
- 2 medium zucchini, shredded
- 1/2 cup millet, uncooked
- 1/2 cup/20 g fresh flat-leaf parsley
- 2 tsp salt
- 1 tsp pepper
Instructions
- Pour millet in a small pot of boiling water and cook for 7 minutes until tender, drain and set aside.
- Preheat oven to 400F/200C.
- In a pan cook 2 chopped onions over low heat for 10 minutes until tender but not coloured. Scoop half of the onions and put them in a large mixing bowl.
- To the pan with the remaining onions add a can of chopped tomatoes previously processed in a food processor until smooth, chicken stock and a pinch of salt and pepper, simmer on low heat for 7-10 minutes.
- While your sauce is simmering, to the large bowl with cooked onions add pork, shredded zucchini, chopped parsley (reserve 1 tbsp. for the sauce), cooked millet, salt and pepper and mix thoroughly. To check whether the mixture has a right balance of salt and pepper pinch off a meatball-sized portion of the filling, flatten it into a patty, fry on both sides and taste for seasoning. Add more salt if necessary.
- Add sour cream to the sauce and 1 tbsp of chopped parsley, stir to combine and take off the heat.
- Pour the sauce to cover the bottom of a large roasting pan.
- Fill halved and cored peppers with meat and zucchini mixture and place them filling side up in the roasting pan with sauce.
- Roast uncovered in the preheated oven for 45 minutes.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
What size of canned tomatoes?
400g/14-15 oz