The nice part about becoming older is that you truly gain wisdom. It’s kind of weird to think about sometimes, isn’t it? To really acknowledge how much you change each and every year. As I glanced out at the sunrise during my flight to Chicago this morning, I thought about the little (big) things I’ve learned during my 20s (thus far):
- Your time is better spent doing what you love. Always.
- You learn a lot about other people and the relationships you find yourself in and sometimes it’s a pattern. It’s weird.
- You become better at understanding others in a more of an emotional sense. A good thing!
- You realize that sometimes two people just aren’t right for each other, but you accept it, move on, and that’s that.
- You realize you need to be patient when it comes to your career and success.
- BUT you learn to walk away from the things that don’t leave you satisfied with happiness, and then choose to pursue what keeps you smiling.
- You value close friendships more than ever. You leave drama behind.
- You are more thankful for your family because they will always be rock solid.
- You begin to acknowledge the fact that a different location won’t change your feelings or allow you to start over. Your location doesn’t control your happiness — YOU do.
- Somewhere along the way, you grow up a bit.
More than anything, I’ve discovered that your 20s are about trials and tribulations. The best you can do is to just be yourself. Only try to change what you CAN control… and the rest? Whatever! Simply put, we all can be better than the people we were yesterday.
After all this, I’ve also realized that growing up means enjoying thing that are actually HEALTHY for your body and mind. Especially food that makes your body feel good on both the inside and out. Unfortunately, inhaling 5 cookies at once won’t bring you any sort of happiness.
Trust me on this. I’ve had several bad experiences with Girl Scout Cookies. Shhhh.
So what should we be eating? Nutritious things from the earth! This means unprocessed whole grains, fruits, vegetables, healthy natural fats, and things that don’t come from a drive-thru or a box. If this is a weird or foreign concept to you, then please plan a trip to the farmer’s market and clear out your cabinet. I’m going to teach you how to cook and bake oddly delicious things. AND it’s going to be fun.
That’s right, we have to learn when to say no to cookies and when to say yes to mind-blowing delicious vegetarian stuffed peppers like these. Hehe.
You guys know me and my obsession with margaritas and Mexican food. Like hellooooooooo… margs + chips + guac complete me. I love the flavor profiles of Mexican food so much that nearly every dish I create uses garlic, jalapenos, cilantro, and some sort of chile based sauce. Definitely no apologies there.
But today I wanted to give you a vegetarian (and gluten-free!) stuffed pepper recipe — packed with flavor but WITHOUT mega calories! They’re filling, gorgeous, and probably one of my favorite meals I’ve had in quite sometime.
You must make them! SERIOUSLY.
I find that they are perfect for just about anyone. Make them vegan by leaving off the cheese (or use vegan cheese), plus they’re already gluten-free! If you want an extra satisfying meal, add in a cup of chopped chicken breast to the mix.
I think you’ll get the idea with these totally amazing vegetarian stuffed peppers! Load them with guac and low-fat sour cream or greek yogurt.
More healthy vegetarian meals to try:
Stuffed Poblano Peppers with Black Bean, Corn & Sweet Potato
Chipotle Black Bean Roasted Veggie Enchilada Casserole + video!
Sweet Potato Black Bean Enchiladas with Avocado Lime Crema
Butternut Squash and Black Bean Enchilada Skillet
Roasted Veggie, Chickpea & Pesto Quinoa Salad
Black Bean, Sweet Potato & Quinoa Stuffed Bell Peppers
Ingredients
- 1 teaspoon olive oil
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 1/2 large yellow onion, diced (about 1/2 cup)
- 1/2 jalapeno, seeded and diced
- 3/4 cup uncooked quinoa
- 2 cups vegetable broth, divided
- 1 - 15 oz can black beans, rinsed and drained
- 1 medium sweet potato, peeled and finely diced
- 2 Roma tomatoes, seeded and finely chopped
- 1 tablespoon chili powder
- 1/2 teaspoon cumin
- 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
- 1/2 cup chopped cilantro
- 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes, if desired
- 1/8 teaspoon pepper
- 1/8 teaspoon salt, plus more to taste if desired
- 3 large red bell peppers, seeds removed and cut vertically
- 3/4 cup reduced fat shredded colby jack cheese
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
- In a saute pan over medium-high heat, heat olive oil. Add onions, jalapeno, and garlic, and saute until the onions begin to soften and turn translucent, about 4-5 minutes. Place into large bowl and set aside.
- To cook quinoa: Rinse quinoa with cold water in mesh strainer. In a medium saucepan, bring 1 1/2 cups of vegetable broth to a boil. Add in quinoa and bring mixture to a boil again. Cover, reduce heat to low and let simmer for 15 minutes or until quinoa has absorbed all of the water. Remove from heat and fluff quinoa with fork; place in large bowl.
- While quinoa is cooking place a medium pot over high heat and fill with water, bring water to a boil and add in diced sweet potato. Reduce heat to medium, cover, and continue to cook for about 6 minutes or until sweet potatoes are fork tender. This might take more or less time depending on how small you cut your sweet potatoes. Once tender, drain water from sweet potatoes and place into bowl with quinoa and onion mixture.
- Gently stir in black beans, tomatoes, remaining 1/2 cup of vegetable broth, chili powder, cumin, oregano, cilantro, red pepper flakes, and salt and pepper.
- Arrange bell peppers in large skillet or baking pan and stuff with a heaping 1/2 cup of quinoa mixture. Cover with foil and bake for 20-30 minutes until peppers are tender. Uncover and sprinkle each with 2 tablespoons of cheese. Place in oven for 5 minutes longer or until cheese melts. Remove and serve immediately with toppings such as sour cream, your favorite hot sauce or guacamole.
44 comments
I love these. These will be a great healthy dinner. Also, I agree about gaining wisdom. I’m just now starting to really appreciate things.
This sounds like a wonderful combination of flavors and it’s healthy too! I love the idea of putting sweet potatoes (my fav!) in the peppers! Look forward to giving this one a try!
Yum! This looks amazing. I have recently changed my the way I eat and lost 15 pounds. Thank you for putting the nutritional info at the bottom! This helps me so much! Thank for coming up with such yummy, creative, healthy food!
Ooooh what an amazing idea !! You are so right, mexican food is great, it just makes people happier to my opinion 🙂
Is the serving size nutrition for a whole pepper or just one half? Thanks! Looks yummy!
I love love love Mexican food but it always makes me feel so gross after eating it (I’m looking at you, chips and queso). So this is the best of both worlds!
Looks yummy! Is the nutritional information based on 1 full pepper or the half stuffed pepper?
Very flavorful and super easy to make. Thanks for posting it.
I’m hoping that if I just keep making your recipes you’ll take the hint and come move in as my personal chef. 🙂 C’mon…Montana is beautiful! No? Ok. Well, we had these for dinner last night and loved them.
I did add some elk italian sausage to keep the hubs happy, but it seemed like a good addition.
Oh….and and and….I topped them off with your chipotle yogurt sauce and some diced avocado. DE-VINE. Had one again for lunch today in fact.
It could have been the addition of sausage, but I had enough stuffing for a 4th bell pepper….and trust me, I stuffed those suckers high. Just FYI.
Comments like these make my day! YUM!
I made these yesterday (adding chicken). Very Good!
http://www.fitclick.com/recipe_Mexican_Style_Stuffed_Peppers_with_Chicken_?fd=724103
This is a link to my altered recipe (includes nutrition analysis!!)
Hi Monique,
I just made them for my grandparents and they loved it!!
It’s ridiculous, I think I’ve made about 15 of your recipes and they were all amazing!!
Especially love the flourless peanutbutter oatmeal choc chip cookies made with dark brown packed sugar…
Your recipes remind me why I love to cook and (especially) bake.
Greetings from Holland!!
Lonneke
I'm making these tonight! The photography of this dish is absolutely stunning!
Great recipe, can't wait to make these!
So gonna try this one.
Just made these tonight, added corn. YUM!
My one year old, who is not a meat lover, my mother and I, who are, all really loved this. I omitted the jalapeño for my daughter. This was a fantastic recipe sure to satisfy vegetarians and meat eaters alike. My only criticism, which really isn’t a criticism at all, was that I had quite a bit more filling than I could fit into the three peppers but I don’t mind the leftovers at all. Thanks for sharing!
These are very good and easy on the eyes! I think they need a little more zing though so I will be adding salsa in place of the tomatoes and a lot more cilantro – love cilantro! Thanks for the great recipe!
We love this recipe and have shared it with our readers this week! See your recipe we shared on Reciperedoblog.com. If you have other healthy recipes you would like to share, please send them to recipes@journeyintowellbeing.com. Thanks!
Hi! I made this recipe yesterday and LOVED it! The only thing is that we made way too much of the filling, so I was wondering if it could be freezed? or how long does it last in the fridge? thanks!
Yes it can. Or you can just reheat as leftovers and enjoy as is! Another option is to add a little vegetarian broth and enjoy as a soup! 🙂
http://growin-a-me.blogspot.com/2015/03/so-much-for-easier.html
I linked to my blog, because I loved it so much! I made this this weekend to eat for lunches this week. It is SO delicious! Thanks for sharing!!!
These were very tasty. I am just now finding out how wonderful sweet potatoes are without slathering them in butter, sugar and spices. I did not add the cheese as I’m trying to avoid dairy these days and I also added extra cilantro because I love it. I was pleasantly surprised at how good they were. Even my picky 13 year old enjoyed the quinoa filling. Thank you for this recipe!
My boyfriend and I made this recipe last weekend and loved it!!! I really like how the quinoa gets a little crunchy on top when you put it all in the oven- like a twice baked potato but really good for you! Thank you for the recipe we’ll definitely be making it again!
The ingredient combination sounds interesting. And yes, it does sound healthy. On a side note, I would prefer to see 1 or 2 great photos instead of the same shot 6 times. I’m happy for you that you realized relatively early on in life, that eating healthy doesn’t have to be uninteresting or tasteless; however, I am at a loss as to why there is so much chatter.
Because this is a blog! Thanks for your input though.
Totally delicious!!
Looks delicious and I would love to try this recipe but before I do, please can you say whether the nutritional info is for one whole pepper and the recipe serves 3 or if for half a stuffed pepper and it serves 6?
Thanks
I was wondering about the nutrition too, so for all those who asked, I entered this into My Fitness Pall and it looks like the info on here is for one half, great recipe!
Monique! This was ahhhmazing!! My husband and I ate it all up and raved about it. Nice work! I left out the pepper and red pepper as well due to the fact I added mild italian chicken sausage and it had enough heat. Will definitely be making this again!
Not sure why this left my hubbys name, haha,
.
Absolutely delicious recipe! Not sure if you’ve heard of them, but I used Zen Spice Traders (www.zenspicetraders) Vietnamese Phú Quốc Black Pepper and their Roasted Thai Chili to make this even better. The flavor profiles are very complementary and work well together!
Glad you enjoyed! I haven’t tried them, but they sound delicious 🙂
very delicious!
What a delicious recipe!!!!!! I made these tonight and even my husband (who insists every meal has meat) was a huge fan! We were both happy and satisfied!! I should’ve bought two more peppers to fit the yummy mix (ours were teeny) but I put the excess in a mini cocotte (sp?) in the oven and plan to eat sans pepper shell as leftovers . Anyway, really great recipe. Thank you so much for sharing! I’m subscribing to your emails now!
Amazing! So happy to hear that, Rebecca. Great idea with the leftover filling too 🙂 Hope you find more recipes here that you love!
Made this and it was absolutely delicious! Took more like two hours however, though, and even with two extra bell peppers, we still had leftover quinoa mix. But it was worth all the effort and was mouthwatering! Will definitely make it again 🙂
So glad you enjoyed!
We did not like this, just too boring I think. Typically we love all of AK dishes but this one went to our chickens.
I am so sorry to hear that you all did not enjoy this recipe.
I would probably have liked this NOT in the bell peppers but as tacos or burritos. I loved the flavor of it and it was easy enough to make, but I just didn’t think it went well with the peppers.
Also, I only had two red bell peppers, so I knew I would have some leftovers if I followed the ingredients and amounts. After stuffing the two bell peppers I had, I had SO MUCH of the stuffing left. I could easily make 2-3 burritos with the leftovers, which is not the worst problem to have, but just so you know…
Thank you for sharing your feedback – Glad you enjoyed the filling portion!