Mexican Stuffed Bell Peppers – stuffed with ground beef, black beans, rice, tomatoes, spiced just right with Mexican spices, topped with grated Cheddar and Mozzarella cheese, baked in a meatless tomato sauce (right from the jar).
These Mexican delicious stuffed peppers make an amazing dinner! They are baked in tomato sauce because it doesn’t let them dry up during the baking process and also expands your options for serving. These bell peppers can be served as-is on a regular plate without tomato sauce.
Or, you can serve them in a bowl, with a little bit of the tomato sauce at the bottom, which makes them more moist and flavorful – I prefer them that way.
These Mexican stuffed bell peppers are super easy to make – fill the peppers with the filling according to the recipe, and place them in a baking dish.
Fill the baking dish with tomato sauce and sprinkle the peppers and the sauce with cheese.
Cover with foil and bake until heated through! Enjoy!
The Best Mexican Stuffed Bell Peppers
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- ½ pound beef
- 2 teaspoons chili powder
- 2 teaspoons cumin
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 cup rice cooked, or 1/2 cup rice (uncooked)
- ½ can black beans about 8-ounce – whole can is 15-ounce, rinsed
- 1 large tomato chopped into small slices
- 6 medium-size green bell peppers
- ⅔ cup marinara meatless spaghetti tomato sauce
- ⅔ cup or less water judge for yourself
- 1 bag mozzarella cheese
- 1 bag cheddar cheese
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F.
- Heat the skillet on the stovetop until hot. Add olive oil – it should sizzle. Immediately add ground beef and cook it, constantly stirring, until nicely browned and cooked through. Remove from heat. Drain all excess fat. Add 1 teaspoon chili powder, 1 teaspoon cumin, 1/4 teaspoon salt to cooked ground beef, and stir to combine.
- To the same skillet, off heat, add black beans, chopped tomatoes, and cooked rice. Note: make sure to rinse black beans really well and drain. Add more spices: 1 teaspoon chili powder, 1 teaspoon cumin, 1/4 teaspoon salt to beef, stir to combine.
- Prepare bell peppers for stuffing: cut the tops off, stem and seed them.
- Stuff each bell pepper with the filling. Fill the baking dish with marinara spaghetti sauce and up to 2/3 cups of water (don’t pour all water at once – just pour enough to make the marinara sauce less dense). Place stuffed bell peppers tightly into the prepared baking dish, cavity side up. In my case, I used 2 large bread pans. Top each pepper with both grated Mozzarella and Cheddar cheese. Sprinkle some cheese over the tomato sauce too. Cover with foil
- Bake for 30-40 minutes, until the peppers are tender and the filling is hot. Serve in shallow bowls, with some tomato sauce on the bottom.
