The stuffed red pepper that isn’t actually, stuffed.

SERVES: 6
PREP TIME: 5 mins
COOKING TIME: 40 mins
DIFFICULTY: easy
IDEAL FOR: family, midweek meals, hungry crowd
BUDGET: £

But tastes rich and warm and is a lot less fiddly than stuffing an actual pepper.

Let’s be honest, when have you ever really found a stuffed pepper to be ground-breaking?

It’s usually marched out as a classic vegetarian dish… to their great disappointment.

And even the meat-lovers version means you just dig into the pepper, gauging out the lush, tomato-y lamb.

The pepper casing usually just gets discarded and lies on the plate looking a little dejected.

But not this little number.

It’s taking all those ingredients and making the whole dish (simpler) and truly tasty.

To simplify

Sometimes it’s just good to simplify the hell out of a recipe.

It means you gain more time to do the other things that need doing.

And you’re not compromising on flavour.

That’s why this cheeky little recipe is a winner.

Ridiculously easy

I made this dish on a Friday.

Which means, I wasn’t really in the mood for making a fussy meal for the family.

My week had been busy but I didn’t want to succumb to a (delicious) takeaway either.

And the beauty of this recipe is it takes the grand total of 50 minutes.

Of which 45 minutes was letting it sit on the stove doing its thing.

So, I whipped down to the local farm store and grabbed a few peppers etc while my minced lamb was defrosting

(Check out ‘The art of freezing meat’ here)

Delightfully surprised

As the family started to mutter and murmur about being hungry, I rang the dinner bell.

Served it into bowls.

And they all tucked in.

Now, when I say we were delightfully surprised.

I mean we were.

Let’s not pretend this is a sophisticated dish (maybe stuffed peppers were back in the 70’s??).

So it was more about serving a good wholesome meal to the family.

And what we all decided, as we scrapped the bottom of the dish for the last spoonful’s, that it’s;

Moorish.

Warming.

Filling.

Satisfying.

And we left nothing in the dish!

So, as a family, we gave it a thumbs up for a very quick and easy dish to whip up for hungry people.

A tip

In this recipe, you’re best to use long grain brown rice.

I didn’t have any so I used long grain white rice which was perfectly fine.

But brown is meant to be better for soup-like recipes as it apparently can handle cooking and reheating better.

And doesn’t soak up as much of the broth as the white version so you get more of the soupy-broth.

Leftovers… if you think you’ll have any

Rice can be a bit dodgy on reheating if you don’t do it properly.

I know, I’ve been there.

So, if you want to make enough for more than one meal.

Then, I recommend prepping the soup part of the recipe, as a batch.

Then cook the rice separately and just add to the soup whenever you’re ready to eat.

Got any super simple and satisfying dishes to share? Drop me a line…

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5 from 2 votes

‘Stuffed’ red pepper soup with lamb

Course Main Course

Keyword easy, family meals, midweek meal, simple

Prep Time 10 minutes minutes

Cook Time 40 minutes minutes

Total Time 50 minutes minutes

Servings 6 people

Cost £

Ingredients

• 2 medium – large red bell pepper
• 1 medium – large green, yellow or orange bell pepper
• 1 onion, chopped
• 3 garlic cloves, crushed
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 500 g minced lamb
• 1 1/2 tsp sea salt
• 1 tbsp dried Italian seasoning *if you don't have this, it's made up of a mixture of approx 1/4 – 1/2 tsp each of dried… rosemary, oregano, basil, thyme, marjoram (and you could add parsley, chilli flakes)
• 1/2 tsp freshly ground pepper
• 6 cups low sodium beef or chicken stock
• 800 g (2 cans) fire roasted diced tomatoes (or just use tinned diced tomatoes and add a tablespoon or two of paprika if you can't find fire-roasted)
• 1 tbsp tomato paste
• 1 cup long-grain brown rice
• bunch of fresh parsley for the garnish optional

Instructions

• In a bowl, dice the peppers and onion and mince the garlic and mix in the Italian seasoning.
• In a large casserole dish or similar, heat a tbsp of live oil over a medium heat. Then add the minced lamb and season with sea salt.

  Use a wooden spoon to break up the mince and brown the lamb (approx 5 mins).
• Now, add the mix of bell peppers, onion, garlic, Italian seasoning, and another teaspoon sea salt, and 1/2 teaspoon black pepper, to the casserole dish.

  Cook until softened, around 7 to 8 minutes.

  Finally, add 6 cups beef or chicken broth, the fire-roasted diced tomato cans, the tomato paste, stir in and add the cup of long-grain brown rice.

  Bring to a boil.

  Reduce the heat and simmer, uncovered until the rice is tender – should take around 30 – 40 mins.
  
  Serve with chopped parsley (and some crusty bread)
  

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