Mexican Inspired Sfuffed Peppers

Submitted by Jfoxe

"This is a cross between Chili Relleno and traditional American style stuffed peppers. On ce again I was throwing stuff together trying to be creative while staying low carb. I have some Ideas on how to improve this when I'm not restricting my carbs but this was really yummy."

 

• Ready In: 1hr 10mins
• Ingredients: 9
• Yields: 5 peppers
• Serves: 5

ingredients

• 5 poblano peppers
• 1⁄2 lb ground pork
• 1⁄2 lb ground beef
• 2 cups salsa
• 1 -2 cup shredded mexican cheese
• 1 egg
• salt
• pepper
• cumin

directions

1. Roast peppers under a the broiler until they start to char but do not over cook. you don't want them to turn black all over. Turn them periodically so roast evenly on all sides.
2. When the peppers are done, sweat them by putting them in a zip lock bag and letting them cool.
3. Once cool, carefully peel the skin off the peppers.
4. Using a small knife make a t shaped cut in the top of the pepper. you should cut appx 1 1/2 -2 inches across the top of the pepper and about 2 or 3 inches down the side. The cooler the pepper is the easier this will be without tearing the pepper too much.
5. CAREFULLY cut the seeds out of the pepper without tearing the pepper further. You want to leave the top of the pepper on and you only want the slit in the pepper to be big enough to be able to stuff the filling in later.
6. Prepare the filling by mixing the meat, egg, 1/2 cup salsa, 1/2 cup of the cheese, and seasonings in a bowl.
7. Gently stuff the peppers with the meat mixture a little bit at a time. You want them to be nice and full. Ideally when stuffed the opening in the pepper will be spread apart and you can see the meat, but it should not be so full that the pepper loses its shape or tears
8. Place the peppers in a glass or ceramic baking dish. You want them to just fit perfectly, so try to use a dish that is not too big.
9. Spoon some of the remaining salsa over each the meat that is visible on eache pepper. Any remaining sauce can be poured in between them to coat the bottom of the pan. The peppers and meat will create their own juice so its ok if the bottom of the pan isn't fully coated.
10. Sprinkle remaining cheese over the salsa on the peppers. I don't cover the whole pepper, just the part of the filling that should be "coming out" of the top of the pepper, but if you like a lot of cheese you may want to coat the whole pepper.
11. Cover w/ foil and bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes. Then uncover and bake for another 10 min or until cheese is golden brown.
12. ENJOY!
13. Variations: If I wasn't on a low carb diet I would add corn and chopped onion to the filling. Maybe use a corn and black bean salsa instead of a regular salsa. Also this isn't very spicy when you get the pablanos out of season but still tasty. So next time I make this in winter I will probably add hot sauce to the filling or use a hotter salsa. Another possibility would be to use jalepenos in the filling too. Sky's the limit.

Reviews

[klassykat024]

Prep time was wayyyy longer than stated, maybe I should have cooled the peppers in the fridge. Overall it wasn't that great.

 

[Dreamer in Ontario]

These stuffed peppers are amazing! I wasn't able to get poblano peppers and had to substitute bell peppers. Since I was making this substitution I decided to use two green and three red peppers. The grocery store I went to also didn't have ground pork so I used ground beef for the whole mixture. Other than that I followed the recipe as it's written. My peppers must have been smaller than those used by the author of the recipe because I had some meat mixture left over which was also delicious when fried up. DD was home for dinner and using this recipe as the inspiration, I made a vegetarian version where a rice and refried bean mixture was used in place of the ground beef/pork. She loved the vegetarian version, too. Thanks for sharing. This recipe is a keeper. Made for PAC Spring 2011