Stuffed Peppers

Question

I use red bell peppers and stuff witha ground meat mixture. After baking there is a lot of excess water in the tomato sauce. Is there something I could do to the pepper before stuffing and baking to eliminate the excess water.  I`'ve tried boiling the pepper and allowed to dry a couple hours before stuffing and baking and that did not work.   Any suggestions?

Ttrockwood · Answer

I agree it’s not an issue with the peppers, it’s the tomato sauce.
Another option aside from cooking down the tomato sauce first to make it thicker would be to bake the stuffed peppers with the meat/rice mixture only and then serve with warmed tomato sauce on the side of added at the last minute.

Nancy · Answer

The problem of too much water usually isn't coming from the peppers, rather from the sauce. Thus, no solution in changing the prep on the peppers.
If you don't want to add a grain to the mixture to absorb some of the extra liquid, use a very dense tomato sauce.
Either cook down a commercial one, or use less-than-usual liquid when making one from scratch.
Also near the end, cook part of the time in the oven uncovered, if there is still too much liquid near the end.

inpatskitchen · Answer

I barely cook the meat and add raw rice...seems to absorb the excess liquid as it cooks.

Debbie Z. · Answer

I use cooked rice in my ground meat mixture and i still seem to have excess water.  Thank you for answering

laura · Answer

Do you like rice or a grain like farro or quinoa in the stuffing part? I sometimes stuff peppers with a mixture of cooked &amp;amp; seasoned ground meat mixed with cooked rice or grains; I think it helps absorb the juices.

Stuffed Peppers

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