Stuffed Peppers

I use red bell peppers and stuff with
a 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?

Debbie Z
  • 6238 views
  • 5 Comments

5 Comments

Ttrockwood March 17, 2019
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 March 17, 2019
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.
 
laura March 16, 2019
Do you like rice or a grain like farro or quinoa in the stuffing part? I sometimes stuff peppers with a mixture of cooked & seasoned ground meat mixed with cooked rice or grains; I think it helps absorb the juices.
 
Debbie Z. March 16, 2019
I use cooked rice in my ground meat mixture and i still seem to have excess water. Thank you for answering
 
inpatskitchen March 16, 2019
I barely cook the meat and add raw rice...seems to absorb the excess liquid as it cooks.
 
Recommended by Food52