March 9, 2021

Stuffed Peppers and/or Rice/Sausage/Mushroom “Casserole” Recipe – GF, DF

We made this last week & it was a hit! Especially with our food sensitivities, we often offer multiple options with meals – so with this meal we had 4 different options – the Stuffed Peppers, plain sausage & rice, or with mushrooms, or the sausage/ rice/mushroom combo with pasta sauce mixed in (the same filling that’s in the peppers).

You can tailor it to how you like it, or have several different meal ideas! 😊 The ingredients listed below made a pretty big batch, enough for our family of 10 with a few leftovers. We filled & cooked 8 peppers, the rest of the “filling” was eaten as is. Most of the family said they preferred the mixture without the peppers, so I’m sure we’ll eat it that way more often.

Stuffed Peppers

*Bell peppers – as many as you want/need. Typically 1 per person.

*2 pounds sausage (we used 1 Italian & 1 regular because that’s what we had)

*1 8-oz tub of button mushrooms – finely diced or use a food processor

* 2 yellow onions – finely diced or use a food processor

* Jar of pasta sauce

*Cooked rice – I cooked 4 C of dry rice. You can use as much or little as you want, we just kept adding rice to the sausage mixture until it was a good proportion.

1. Cook rice – can be done ahead of time

2. Wash & cut the tops & cores out of the bell peppers. Place them upside down in an 8×10 glass baking dish & bake in a preheated 350° oven for 8 minutes.

3. Cook sausage & onions (& mushrooms if you are using them) together in a skillet. Once the sausage is fully cooked, we split it in half to leave some without the pasta sauce. Mix about 1/2 – 2/3 of the jar of pasta sauce into your sausage/rice mixture (you can add less based on how much mixture you have. You don’t want it too soupy.)

4. Spoon the mixture into each parcooked bell pepper, leaving a little room at the top. Add a spoonful of the pasta sauce over the mixture to the top of the pepper. This keeps the rice mixture from drying out in the oven.