Keto Stuffed Bell Peppers

This recipe for Keto Stuffed Bell Peppers is a homey meal with just 258 calories and 7g net carbs per serving. It's colorful and full of flavor.

Jump to:

• 🥣 Ingredients
• 📖 Instructions
• ♨️ Alternate Cooking Methods
• ❄️ Storage
• 🔥 How to Reheat
• 💬 Keto Diet Questions
• 📋 Recipe

“You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you might find, you get what you need.” -the Rolling Stones

Greetings 👋

I’ve had that catchy Rolling Stones song in my head all morning as I cooked up these Keto Stuffed Bell Peppers.  Why?  Well, it has to do with Christopher Columbus, if you can believe that.

We all know that he discovered America as he was looking for India.  

Well, it turns out, he found something else while he was at it.  He was searching for black peppercorns (which were kind of a big deal back then) and came up empty.  But he did find these vegetables that looked like hot peppers, but with a bell shape.  So he called them bell peppers, and the name stuck, so now we all call them bell peppers.

And we stuff these bell peppers with delicious fillings and bake them up.

There are endless ways to fill stuffed bell peppers, but today we’re going to stick to the classic American version of the dish, which is bell pepper, filled with ground meat, tomatoes, and rice, and baked in the oven.  And because it’s low carb, we’ll swap out the rice with cauliflower rice.

🥣 Ingredients

• Bell Peppers- You'll need 7 bell peppers, of any color.  Green ones are on the bitter side, but will mellow out the longer you bake them. 
• Olive Oil- You can also use butter or coconut oil in this recipe, but you will taste the coconut, so stick to olive oil if you have it.  
• Ground Meat- Ground beef is the most common ingredient in stuffed peppers, but you can also use ground chicken, ground turkey, ground sausage, or ground pork.  You can also make a meat mixture of 1 part ground beef to 1 part Italian sausage.  
• Garlic- I hate peeling garlic, so I always buy it pre-peeled.  It goes bad faster, but you don't have to fiddle with it.
• Tomato Paste-  If you don't have any tomato paste, you can substitute 3 tablespoons of tomato sauce for the 1 tablespoon of tomato paste that the recipe calls for.
• Diced Tomatoes and Chilies- You can buy a mixture of diced tomatoes and chilis in a can.
• Cauliflower Rice- Time was, you needed to make your own cauliflower rice by processing cauliflower florets in a food processor or high-powered blender. But the demand for low carb rice substitutes has grown and now you can buy cauliflower rice in most large grocery stores.
• Shredded Cheese-  I used sharp cheddar cheese in this recipe, but you can also try parmesan cheese or mozzarella cheese.  
• Paprika- You can also add in 1 teaspoon of chili powder for a little extra kick.
• Salt and Pepper- Salt substitutes work just as well if you are cutting back on your sodium intake.

📖 Instructions

1. Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees F and spray a large dutch oven or deep lidded casserole dish with cooking spray.
2. Hold the bell peppers firmly with one and carefully slice off the tops.  It's easy to get cracks in the peppers as you slice them, so take care.  Remove the seeds and white membrane from inside the peppers.  Remove the stem and small dice the top of each pepper until you reach 1 cup diced peppers.
3. Heat olive oil over Medium-High heat in a large skillet.  Add ground beef, salt, pepper, and paprika to the pan and cook, breaking up the pieces with a spatula until browned, 5-7 minutes.
4. Add garlic and diced peppers to the pan and saute until softened, 4-5 minutes.
5. Add cauliflower rice, tomatoes and chilis, and tomato paste to the pan and cook for 5 minutes more.
6. Arrange the bell peppers in the dutch oven or casserole dish.  Fill the peppers equally with the filling.
7. Cover with the lid and cook for 30-50 minutes, depending on how firm you like your stuffed peppers.  After 30 minutes, they will be cooked but still firm, and after 50 minutes they will be quite soft.
8. Uncover the baking dish and sprinkle cheese on top of each stuffed pepper.  Cook uncovered for 10 minutes more until the cheese is melty.
9. Sprinkle fresh parsley on top and serve.  

♨️ Alternate Cooking Methods

• Air Fryer- Spray the bottom of the air fryer with oil and arrange the filled Keto Stuffed Bell Peppers upright in the air fryer basket.  Cook for 12 minutes at 400 degrees F.  Top with cheese and air fry for another 3 minutes until cheese has melted.  
• Instant Pot- Add 1 cup water to the Instant Pot.  Arrange the filled peppers on the trivet and top with cheese.  Pressure cook on High for 5 minutes and then quick release the steam.
• Slow Cooker- If using a crockpot, you can skip cooking the filling ingredients.  Just mix them up and fill the bell peppers.  Spray the slow cooker with cooking spray and arrange the peppers upright inside.  Cook on high for 3-4 hours or on Low for 6-8 hours.  When filling reaches 165 degrees, it's done. Top with cheese and cook for another 10-15 minutes until melted.

❄️ Storage

Low Carb Stuffed Bell Peppers last for 5 days in the refrigerator or up to 3 months in the freezer. Just make sure to allow the peppers to completely cool down before adding them to a resealable airtight container and storing them.

🔥 How to Reheat

The best way to reheat Keto Stuffed Peppers is in the oven. Put them into a baking dish and cook them in a 350 degree F oven for 10 minutes. You can also reheat them in the microwave for 2-3 minutes. But you should wrap the peppers in a wet towel before you microwave them so that they don’t dry out.

💬 Keto Diet Questions

And that's that.

You can be as creative as you like with the fillings in this Keto Stuffed Peppers recipe, so long as you stick with low carb ingredients. (That means no rice!) But you know what Christopher Columbus always used to say?

You can’t always get what you want, but you might just find, you get what you need.    

Ok, chow for now!

(But let's keep in touch.)

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📋 Recipe

IF YOU LIKED THIS LOW CARB GROUND BEEF RECIPE, THEN YOU MIGHT LIKE MY RECIPES FOR Chili con Carne , BEEF TAMALES OR MEATLOAF.