Tuesday, July 13, 2021

Slow Cooker Mexican Stuffed Peppers (Vegetarian)

 Aldi had peppers on sale when we did our weekly shop yesterday, so I bought extra to make stuffed peppers. As I was deciding what to put in them, I remembered that I had some leftover salsa and a smidge of tomato concentrate in the fridge that needed to be used, so Mexican it was.

I cut off the tops of some bell peppers and as I was chopping those up, I noticed how lovely the colours were there on my cutting board.
They went into a pan that had a bit of oil in it, along with a large chopped onion, one diced courgette (zucchini), and some black beans. I added some granulated garlic, cumin, coriander (powder), dried coriander leaves, oregano, and a sprinkle of chilli powder. When the veggies were just about cooked, I added The salsa, ronsed out the jar and added that water to the pan, along with the tomato concentrate. Then I tossed in some cheese, cut into small cubes. I used vintage cheddar and cheddar with chilli. I gave it a final stir and filled the peppers. I was going to add some corn, but I could tell I had more than enough filling already, so I skipped it. I put a small bit of water in the bottom of my slow cooker crock, filled the peppers, and stood them up in the crock.
I turned the slow cooker to the high setting and let them cook for 3 hours and 45 minutes--it smelled pretty wonderful in here! Then I sliced some cheddar cheese with chilli and cheddar cheese with spring onion and topped the peppers with that. I put the lid back on for  few minutes until the cheese was melted.
These were so good! I don't know why I don't make stuffed peppers more often. They're so versatile and easy to just let them cook away for a few hours.

If you wanted to add meat, easy enough to do--just cook it before you stuff the peppers. If you want to make it vegan, just use vegan 'cheese.'

I'll be thinking about how to fill the next batch 😋



6 comments:

Joy said...

I started making stuffed peppers years ago with the old stove-top pressure cooker. We'd pre-cook the prepared peppers so they were a good bit done already, just strong enough to fill and then pop them into whatever we were going to use to finish the cook and then maybe pop them under the broiler to caramelize/roast or crunch the cheese etc on top. There's so many easy methods and thankfully in the heat we have going now, none of them have to take terribly long. Another way if one is low on peppers is to lay it out a bit like a lasagna with the veg like the peppers and the courgettes as the 'noodles'. Pre cooking/steaming them just makes the 'bake' part go faster so it 'sets the dish' while cooking-up fast. Those look wonderful and I agree, definitely taste so great! (I'd use the same sort of ingredients/flavors myself.) I'm glad you reminded me of this because I could definitely use a nice switch-up to things. (I'm generally uninspired to cook in the heat.)

Shari Burke said...

Yes--no reason why you shouldn't enjoy what you love, Vicki! I love leftovers! :-)

I know what you mean about cooking in the heat, Joy! I definitely don't turn on the oven, so I am glad for small appliances like the slow cooker that allow me to cook without blasting very much hot air into the place!

Iris Flavia said...

Yummmm. Oh, we haven´t had this in ages (and somehow to me that´s a winter dish!).
We don´t have a slow cooker, Ingo uses the oven and we have them with rice and mushrooms... and cheese of course :-)

Shari Burke said...

We never really ate mushrooms, but recently I decided to start using them more. But they make me itch like mad, so that experiment is now over--LOL

Jackie McGuinness said...

I haven't made that in ages! They are in season so I should.

Shari Burke said...

Oooh, yeah--they'd be great with all sorts of seasonal produce!