Spanish-Style Stuffed Peppers

I loooove this recipe! It is so good! I have made it several times before, and in the past have added sausage to the stuffing mixture. I left the sausage out today so that this could be used as our vegetarian dinner for the week. You can actually find this recipe in two different Pampered Chef cookbooks - Quick Vegetarian Main Dishes and 29 Minutes to Dinner (both excellent cookbooks).

Adding sausage makes it a bit of a more hearty meal and also adds some great flavor. But it was also very delicious tonight without the sausage! If you do decide to add the sausage, cook the sausage before you begin preparing dinner and chop it up, then add it to the rice when you're mixing the vegetables in with the rice and stir it all together.

Yellow saffron rice is so yummy to me. I probably could have just sat there and just ate the whole pot of rice, but I restrained myself. The cookbook says that, "We used packaged yellow saffron rice, available in most grocery store, to save time in preparing this recipe. Yellow rice is flavored with onion and garlic as well as saffron, the most expensive spice in the world. Saffron adds a unique flavor and a beautiful color to the rice." Lucky for us, even though saffron is the most expensive spice in the world, packaged yellow saffron rice is NOT expensive.

This sparked my curiosity, so I did a little research. The spice is actually derived from a flower and has been traded and used for over four millennia! Isn't it pretty?

saffron crocus

picture from wikipedia 

Ok, back to the recipe... the packaged yellow saffron rice seemed to have cooked a lot faster than the regular brown rice that we normally make, so just make sure it doesn't start to stick to the bottom of the pan or anything. The recipe is pretty easy to follow and really doesn't take too long to put together. It says to microwave the red peppers for 3-4 minutes, but mine are always good to go after just 3 minutes. After you stir the vegetables (and sausage, if desired) into the rice and you place the red bell pepper halves in the skillet, you need to move a little fast with spooning the stuffing mixture into the peppers and getting the water into the bottom of the skillet so that the bottoms of the peppers don't burn. The recipe yields 4 servings, but each serving (half of a stuffed pepper) only has 250 calories in it, so if you're just cooking for two and really hungry, then you might want a whole pepper each (which is what this recipe produces). Of course, if you add the sausage, then just a regular serving of one half should be enough for dinner!

I really hope you try this recipe! It is so delicious and you will be very happy that you gave it a shot!

Spanish-Style Stuff Peppers

Pampered Chef Quick Vegetarian Main Dishes

Published by The Pampered Chef, Ltd. in 2010.

Total time: 29 minutes  Yield: 4 servings

1 pkg (5 oz or 175 g) yellow saffron rice (plus ingredients to make rice)

2 medium red bell peppers

2 medium tomatoes

1 poblano pepper or small green bell pepper

1 green onion with top

1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro, divided

1 tsp olive oil

2 garlic cloves, pressed

3/4 cup shredded Mexican cheese blend, divided

2 tbsp water

1. Prepare rice according to package directions in (1.5-qt.) Saucepan. As rice cooks, prepare bell peppers. Slice bell peppers in half lengthwise; remove and discard stems and seeds. Microwave, covered, in Large Micro-Cooker on high 3-4 minutes or until crisp-tender. Carefully remove bell peppers and pat dry with paper towels.

2. Meanwhile, core and seed tomatoes with Core & More. Using Santoku Knife, dice tomatoes and poblano pepper. Slice green onion, Chop cilantro.

3. Add oil to (10-in.) Skillet; heat over medium heat 1-3 minutes or until shimmering. Add tomatoes, poblano pepper, onion, half of the cilantro and garlic pressed with Garlic Press; cook 2-3 minutes or until onion is tender.

4. Stir vegetable mixture and 1/2 cup of the cheese into rice in Saucepan. Place bell peppers cut side up into Skillet; spoon rice mixture evenly into each pepper and sprinkle with remaining cheese. Add water to Skillet. Cover Skillet and heat over medium-low heat 3-5 minutes or until cheese is melted. Sprinkle with remaining cilantro.