Crock Pot Stuffed Peppers (Easy Slow Cooker Recipe)
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Crock Pot Stuffed Peppers will have your family popping their heads into the kitchen to see what’s cooking. Make some today for dinner tonight! Slow cooker recipes like this are the best ways to feed the whole family!
Slow cooking delicious meals is one of my favorite things to do.
It’s fun to introduce new recipes with simple ingredients and a great way to have a hearty dinner with lots of flavor, ready and waiting at the end of the day.
The best part about these tender bell peppers stuffed with ground beef filling is that it’s an easy meal that takes just a little bit of time to get set up and ready.
Crock Pot Stuffed Peppers
These Italian stuffed peppers are chock full of mouth watering meat, rice, veggies, and seasonings all topped off with gooey, melted cheese.
This simple dish really packs a ton of flavor and is a wonderful comfort food option.
If the thought of these slow cooker stuffed peppers is making you lick your lips, you would love my cheesy garlic parmesan sausage bombs.
Tender, bite sized poppers that are packed with flavor and so easy to make too!
There’s even an easy soup version of this delectable dish! Or, try some other comfort food staples like my white chicken chili or smokey mac and cheese.
Perfect for colder nights when you want to warm up your insides with a big bowl of YUM!
Crockpot Stuffed Peppers – Tips and Tricks
- Make it less spicy. The hot Italian sausage adds plenty of heat and flavor, but you can swap it for a sweet or mild variety instead.
- Use your hands! This is a sure-fire way to guarantee that the ingredients are well-combined.
- Save the tops. You can place them back on top after stuffing or chop them up and add them to your filling mix.
- Tip for evenly cooked rice: Make sure that the filling is tucked into all of the crevices and does not go over the rim of your pepper.
- Baste regularly. Spoon the excess juices over the tops of your Italian stuffed peppers to keep them juicy and moist. Every 30 minutes or so should do the trick!
Slow Cooker Stuffed Peppers FAQs
No, you don’t! Your slow cooker stuffed peppers will come out perfectly cooked and ready for serving after spending so much time in your slow cooker.
Plus, while the stuffed peppers in the crock pot cook, the meat will release a bunch of yummy juices that will add extra flavor to your finished dish!
This is up to preference.
Blanching softens the peppers even more – I personally like them to have some structure, so I didn’t include a blanching step in my crockpot stuffed peppers recipe!
However, you can drop each pepper in a pot of boiling water for about 2 to 3 minutes and lay them out to dry before cooking the stuffed peppers in the crock pot, if you prefer them extra soft and tender.
You can. The first time you make it, I recommend that you cook with the sausage. The other times, you can swap out for ground chicken, ground beef mixture, ground turkey, or a mixture of ground meat that you’re craving.
These easy crock pot stuffed peppers are the perfect meal no matter the stuffing mixture that you choose. Spicy ground sausage is my go-to during winter months because I love to stuff peppers with a bit of heat!
Even though the recipe card lists specific ingredients, you can easily add and alter them. Some other options can be brown rice, white rice, black beans, mozzarella cheese, marinara sauce, or pinto beans.
It’s easy to change the flavor by adding lots of cheese to these green bell peppers. It’s one of my favorite recipes because it’s a delicious meat mixture that fills the large bell peppers perfectly, while still leaving room for more ingredients to be added as craved.
Allow leftovers to cool before transferring them to an airtight container. Crock pot stuffed peppers will keep in the refrigerator for 3 to 4 days.
They are basically a meal by themselves, and you don’t have to serve anything with them.
However, if you do want something, consider some bread, cornbread, sweet potatoes, or a fresh salad.
The next time that you make this great recipe, be sure to have fun with the serving options. There is so much flavor in the peppers themselves, that you can try this dish out with a bunch of other side dishes and see what you like best!
Enjoy!
With love, from our simple kitchen to yours.
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Other Easy Crockpot Recipes
Crock Pot Stuffed Peppers (Easy Slow Cooker Recipe)
Equipment
Ingredients
- 1 pound ground beef
- 1/2 pound hot Italian sausage, ground
- 1/2 cup long-grain rice
- 1 small white onion, diced
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
- 3 cloves garlic cloves, minced
- 2 teaspoons Italian seasoning
- 1 – 15 ounce 15-ounce can tomato sauce
- 1 – 15 ounce can diced tomatoes, (undrained)
- 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
- 6-7 large bell peppers, a variety of colors is optional
- 1 cup beef broth
- 6-7 slices fresh mozzarella cheese, one slice per bell pepper
- Chopped parsley or herbs for garnish
Instructions
- In a large mixing bowl, combine ground beef, sausage, rice, onion, salt, pepper, garlic, Italian seasoning, Worcestershire, half of the can of tomato sauce, and half of the can of diced tomatoes. Use gloved hands to thoroughly combine all of the ingredients.
- Slice the tops off of the bell peppers and set aside. Remove the ribs and seeds from inside each bell pepper. You can either place the tops of the bell peppers back on them after stuffing (this will help retain the moisture and cook the rice) or chop the usable portion of the lids and add it to the meat/rice mixture.
- Arrange bell pepper “bowls” in the slow cooker.
- Fill each bell pepper with the meat/rice mixture. Try to keep as much of the stuffing tucked down inside the bell peppers (this will aid in the rice cooking more evenly.)
- Whisk together beef both and the remaining tomato sauce and diced tomatoes.
- Pour the broth mixture over the bell peppers.
- Cover and cook on HIGH for 4-5 hours or until the rice is cooked through. If possible, spoon the excess juices in the crockpot up and over the bell peppers, “basting” them every 30 minutes while cooking to keep moisture inside the peppers with the rice.
- Once the rice and meat mixture is cooked, place one slice of cheese over the top of each pepper. Continue cooking for another 15 minutes until cheese is melted. Sprinkle with parsley and serve.
Donna’s Notes
Nutrition
All nutritional information is based on third party calculations and is only an estimate. Each recipe’s nutritional value will vary depending on the ingredients used, measuring methods, and portion sizes.
Originally published December 2021, updated and republished January 2024
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This is my new favorite way to cook stuffed peppers because it’s so easy! Crock-pot meals are the way to go during the work week.
This sounds wonderful. But did you make a mistake on the number of servings? 1 1/2 pound of meat and 6 peppers to serve 13??
Hi Adele,
Sorry about that, it should be 6-7 servings, thank you!
TSRI Team Member,
Holli
Easy and delicious!
I love stuffed peppers and this recipe for making them in the slow cooker is so easy! My slow cooker is a new one and cooks on a fairly high heat so it did not take me as long as 4 hours, more like 3-3 1/2 hours. Will be making this often!