Quinoa Stuffed Peppers

Quinoa Stuffed Peppers

 

These quinoa stuffed peppers are packed with delicious salsa flavor.  It’s a great meatless vegetarian meal easily made vegan with substitutions.

I fell in love with these the first time I saw them.  My friend Lori made them and posted a pic on her Facebook wall.  I immediately started drooling because they looked so good.

Salsa Adds YUM

She’d said she got the recipe off the box of quinoa, but she’d thrown out the box and couldn’t remember the brand.  I so badly wanted this recipe!  A few months later, she remembered the brand and sent me the recipe from their website. Unfortunately, the brand name was no part of the link she sent me nor was it stated in the recipe.  All I know is it was a blue box, so she said.  I buy my quinoa in bulk so I am not familiar with brands!!  Anyway, credit here goes to some brand of quinoa in a blue box 😛

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Quinoa Stuffed Peppers

The dish this is baked in is the pie plate from the Temp-Tations Specialty Baking Set.  The set includes this dish, a 6-cup muffin pan and a standard loaf pan.  The item is retired, but some stock is still available on
Temp-tations.com

Temp-Tations Old World Specialty Baking set

Recipe as it’s stated is fine for vegetarians who eat dairy, but you can turn this vegan by replacing the butter with olive oil and omitting the cheese (or finding a vegan cheese substitute), but even though I am a cheese fanatic, these peppers do not need cheese to be great.  In fact, next time I may omit it entirely—and I LOVE cheese.  That’s how good these are.  You won’t miss meat here.  These are wonderful.

Quinoa Stuffed Peppers

 

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Prep time

30 mins

Cook time

40 mins

Total time

1 hour 10 mins

 

Author: Judith Hannemann

Serves: 4-6

Ingredients

• 1 cup quinoa (uncooked)
• 2 cups water (divided)
• 4 large or 6 medium sweet bell peppers
• 1 medium onion, diced
• ½ lb. fresh mushrooms, sliced
• 2 tbs butter
• 1 can (28 oz) diced tomatoes (reserve juice)
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1 jar (12 oz) salsa
• 2 tbs dry sherry
• 10 oz mozzarella, shredded (reserve a bit for the top)

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. You will need either a 13x9 or 11x7-inch baking pan (or any that will fit the peppers and the remaining quinoa mixture)
2. Cook quinoa according to package directions using 1 cup uncooked quinoa in 1½ cups water. Quinoa cooks like rice. I used my rice cooker for this.
3. Cut off and reserve the tops of the bell peppers. Hollow them out then steam both the tops and the peppers in the remaining ½ cup of water until slightly soft but not limp; drain and cool slightly.
4. In a large skillet or saute pan, melt the butter over medium heat. Add the mushrooms and onion and saute until tender.
5. Drain the can of diced tomatoes, but reserve the juice. Add the drained tomatoes, garlic and the salsa to the onion/mushroom mixture. Stir well and simmer uncovered for 10 minutes.
6. Add the sherry and stir well. Fold in the cooked quinoa and the mozzarella cheese. Stuff peppers with the quinoa mixture--you will use about half of the mixture to stuff the peppers. Place stuffed peppers upright in a baking dish and sprinkle tops of each pepper with reserved cheese.
7. Stir the reserved juice from the can of tomatoes into the remaining half of the quinoa mixture and pour around peppers in the baking pan.
8. Bake uncovered for 20-25 minutes. Top with reserved pepper tops and bake an additional 10-15 minutes.
9. Serves 4-6 depending on size of the peppers.

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