Portions: 4 servings Calories: 562kcal |
This stuffed cubanelle peppers recipe has it all: beautiful presentation, lovely flavor, healthful ingredients, and a low-effort, convenient preparation. It is an excellent dish for freezing and finishing later, serving to guests, bringing to a potluck, or just serving for dinner.
By - Revised . Original Oct 7, 2015.
Stuffed Cubanelle Peppers [Video+Recipe].
Why we ❤️ it
- Easy and fast, it the perfect recipe to make one-dish meal.
- If made with brown rice, it's an excellent option for serving something lighter and more nutritious
- These tender cubanelle peppers stuffed with juicy meat are also great as a more elegant side dish.
Stuffed Cubanelle Peppers [Video+Recipe]
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Utensils and tools
Ingredients
To make the stuffing
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- ½ pound ground chicken, [0.23 kg] or ground turkey
- 1 red onion, minced
- 2 cloves garlic, crushed
- ½ teaspoon black pepper, freshly-cracked, or ground
- 1½ teaspoon salt, (or more, to taste)
- 2 cups leftover rice, (see tips below recipe)
- 1 cup tomato sauce
- 1 tablespoon chopped cilantro
To make the tomato sauce
- 3 cups crushed tomato
- 1½ teaspoon garlic cloves, crushed
- 1½ teaspoon onion powder, dry, ground
- ¼ teaspoon black pepper, freshly-cracked, or ground, (or to taste)
- 1 teaspoon salt, (or to taste)
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
To assemble the stuffed peppers
- 4 cubanela, cubanelle pepper
- Fresh cilantro, to garnish
Video
Preparation
1. Heating oven
Heat oven to 300 ºF [175 ºC].
2. Making the filling
- Heat the oil over very low heat in a skillet, add the ground chicken, add the onion, garlic, and pepper. Cook stirring until the meat has lightly browned.Incorporate tomato sauce and half a cup of water. Once it breaks the boil, add the rice to the pan and mix well. Cook stirring until all the liquid has evaporated. 💡 Use chicken broth instead of water for extra flavor.Remove from the heat and let it cool to room temperature. Incorporate the chopped cilantro and set aside.
3. Making the tomato sauce
- Combine crushed tomato, garlic powder, onion powder, black pepper, salt, and olive oil. Cover the bottom of a lasagna baking pan and set aside.
4. Cleaning the cubanelle peppers
- To clean the cubanelle peppers, cut a slit in the cubanelle peppers and scoop out the seeds and white parts with a small spoon.
5. Stuffing peppers
- Stuff the peppers with the chicken and rice mixture using a tablespoon or teaspoon.
6. Baking
- Place the peppers in the tomato sauce open side up.Cover tightly with aluminum foil. Bake for 25 minutes or until the stuffing is hot.
7. Serving
- Remove from the oven, garnish with the fresh cilantro and serve.
Top tips
- Rice: Use leftover white rice, or brown rice if you'd like a lighter version.
- Filling options: If you want to try a different stuffed cubanelle peppers version, use ground beef instead of ground chicken, and if you want something a bit richer, you can use Italian sausage stuffing in its place.
- Adding cheese: If you want to top these stuffed cubanelle peppers with some mozzarella cheese, go right ahead before going into the oven, it goes great in this dish too.
- Substituttions: Anaheim peppers are a good cubanelle pepper substitute in this recipe if you can't find cubanelle peppers, but bear in mind that while cubanelles are not spicy, Anaheim chiles are medium spicy. You can also use sweet bell peppers.
- Refrigerating: You can store them in the refrigerator stuffed before baking them using an oven-safe airtight container. Bake before serving to finish cooking and reheating.
Serving suggestions
This aji relleno recipe produces a main dish that already contains several elements of a complete meal. The only thing I would add would be a salad, or, better yet, some avocado slices.
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Learn more
Cubanelle peppers Italian frying peppers, or Cuban peppers - known in Spanish as cubanelas or ají cubanela - is a sweet pepper popular in Spanish Caribbean cooking (Puerto Rican, Cuban, and Dominican). Cubanelles are yellowish-green peppers similar in shape and color to Anaheim peppers.
Are Cubanelle peppers hot?
They are not, though slightly more bitter than bell peppers; cubanelle is not a type of hot pepper. It is often confused with Anaheim peppers because they look very similar, but Anaheim peppers are spicy.
Nutrition
Nutritional information is calculated automatically based on ingredients listed. Please consult your doctor if you need precise nutrition information.
Yum! Yum! Yum! I don't have Cubanelle peppers but I have loads of green bell peppers from the garden so I think I'll give this a try this week.
Cubanelles for me are an entirely different taste than green peppers
So this recipe looked good for my home grown peppers, only it’s hard to follow the steps and there is nowhere in the recipe that tells you when to combine the rice mixture with the chicken mixture. Had to improvise, turned out ok but I probably won’t follow this site!… Read more »
Hi Brian. I think you may have missed that part, it's in Step 2, paragraph 2: "Add the rice to the pan and stir." I hope that helps.
My family loved this! Used some leftover baked chicken breasts and cubanelles and tomatoes from our garden. Rice was just a little al dente, might simmer a bit longer next time. Will definitely make again. Thanks
I am so glad to hear you liked it, and great job adapting the recipe to your taste.
This was really a fantastic recipe. I swapped in ground turkey and I sprinkled goat cheese on top when serving and thy were amazing!
Those are some great ideas, thanks for sharing!
Sounds really good. Love spicy rice, thanks for posting.
Simon