Chorizo Stuffed Peppers
I walked into the kitchen last night expecting to start dinner late since I had been outside enjoying the early evening with my neighbor. What I found was a delightful surprise. My husband was deep in the trenches of chopping vegetables and spiralizing a zucchini for our stir-fry. My jaw dropped. After I regained my composure, I refilled my red solo cup and went back outside. I didn’t want to disturb this precious moment by stepping in to help. I let him be the king of the kitchen for the night and it turned out amazingly delicious. I’ll have to let him cook more often! Most of the produce used in his stir-fry came straight from our garden of wonders. This recipe for chorizo stuffed peppers also uses peppers picked minutes before and combines a touch of sweet corn and fresh tomatoes to use the last of my garden’s abundance.
Getting the produce out of my garden and using or preserving it all has been quite the challenge. I’m happy to use the ingredients fresh as often as I can in recipes like these chorizo stuffed peppers. Chorizo is a Spanish style sausage that you can purchase ground or as links. If you can only get it in links, simply remove the casing and remove the ground chorizo. The filling starts with an easy skillet mix of chorizo browned with onions. Add pre-cooked quinoa, black beans, corn and diced tomato for a south of the border twist. Stuff each half of the peppers with a generous amount of filling and bake. You can top with cheese and cilantro if desired. These are flavorful, filling and mild enough in the spice department for kids to enjoy them too. If you want to kick up the heat, add a minced hot pepper (like serrano or jalepeno) to the filling while it’s cooking to meld the flavors or use a hot salsa in place of the diced tomatoes!
- 6-8 ounces ground chorizo
- ½ onion, diced
- 2 tomatoes, diced
- ½ cup pre-cooked quinoa
- ¼ cup sweet corn (about 1 cob, kernels sliced off or use frozen sweet corn)
- ¼ cup low sodium black beans, rinsed and drained
- 1 teaspoon chili powder (optional)
- 3 bell peppers, seeded and cut into halves
- cilantro and cheese to garnish if desired
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- In a skillet, brown chorizo with onion.
- Add tomatoes, quinoa, sweet corn and black beans to the skillet.
- If desired, add chili powder and season with salt/pepper to taste.
- While chorizo is cooking, arrange bell pepper halves on a lightly greased baking dish (9x13 works well).
- When filling is completely cooked, spoon generous amounts into the bell pepper halves.
- Cover the baking dish with foil and bake for 30 minutes.
- After baking, top with cheese and cilantro to serve.
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