Stuffed Peppers with Rice

This Stuffed Peppers with Rice recipe is packed with nutty wild rice, mushrooms, and onions in a zesty tomato sauce, plus gooey melted cheese. Serve stuffed bell peppers as a vegetarian main dish or pair them with grilled or roasted meat!

The Best Stuffed Peppers Recipe

These savory, light-yet-hearty, Stuffed Peppers with Rice make a delicious side dish or lighter main dish. Sweet bell peppers are stuffed with chewy, nutty wild rice, portobello mushrooms, onion, and mozzarella, all in a zesty tomato-Parmesan sauce. They bake up tender, with more gooey melted Parmesan over the top. We like to pair these peppers with a roasted beet salad and grilled pork chops, chicken, or scallops!

Why You’ll Love These Stuffed Peppers with Rice

We always have sweet bell peppers on hand. Besides being incredibly versatile, my family just really loves this vegetable. Here’s why we think you’ll love this stuffed peppers recipe:

• Quick to put together. Other than cooking the wild rice, which you can make in advance, this recipe comes together quickly and easily.
• Easily adapted. You can add in more vegetables or a meat if you want different flavors or more protein. See my variations suggestions below to get you started.
• Mealtime versatility. These stuffed bell peppers work great as a light lunch option, or pair them with meat or other vegetable sides for a more filling meal.
• Good amount of protein. Wild rice is full of nutrients and a great source of plant-based protein. Along with the cheese and mushrooms, one stuffed bell pepper half offers 8 grams of protein!
• Colorful and flavorful. There are so many great flavors going on these peppers, from the savory onion and garlic to the tangy tomato sauce and the hearty baby portobello. Plus, when you use a variety of peppers, it’s a wonderfully colorful presentation!

What You’ll Need

Here’s a list of the ingredients you’ll need to make stuffed bell peppers.

Scroll down to the printable recipe card at the bottom of this post for exact ingredient amounts.

• Bell peppers – Choose from a combination of red, yellow, and/or green peppers.
• Tomato sauce – You can use store-bought sauce or use my homemade pizza sauce for extra flavor.
• Wild rice – This is one of my favorite foods! It adds a wonderful chewy texture and nuttiness to the filling.
• Parmesan cheese – This gives salty, cheesy delicious plus fun texture.
• Baby portobello mushrooms – You can substitute an equivalent amount of regular-sized portobello mushrooms.
• Onion – Use a yellow or red onion.
• Garlic – Fresh garlic always adds a ton of flavor. Feel free to use more than the recipe calls for.
• Oregano – You can use fresh or dried oregano.
• Salt

The Best Peppers for Stuffing

When you’re making stuffed peppers, bell peppers are the peppers you’ll want to use!

Bell peppers are larger, with a big empty cavity. This means they’ll hold a lot of stuffing, which is important when you’re packing in a savory filling. You can choose from different colors of bell peppers, including red, yellow, orange, or green bell peppers. They will all perform the same in this recipe. I like to use a combination of colored peppers because it makes the presentation extra fun.

How to Make Stuffed Peppers with Rice

These savory stuffed peppers with rice are easy to make. Here’s how to do it:

• Heat the oven. Preheat your oven to 425° F.
• Prep the peppers. Place pepper halves, cut sides up, on a rimmed pan or in a large baking dish. Set aside.
• Make the filling. In a medium bowl, combine the tomato sauce, cooked wild rice, ½ cup of Parmesan cheese, mushrooms, onion, garlic, oregano, and salt. Then fold in the shredded mozzarella.
• Stuff the peppers Divide the filling among the pepper halves and cover tightly with foil.
• Bake the peppers. Bake for 20 minutes, or until peppers are softened and the filling is hot. With larger or thicker-walled peppers, you may need to bake them longer. I personally prefer that the peppers are totally softened, with no crunch left.
• Add cheese and melt. Remove the foil and sprinkle the remaining ½ cup Parmesan cheese over the top of the peppers. Bake for another 5 minutes, until the cheese is melty.

Tips & Variations

Here are a few tips for making this stuffed pepper recipe, plus some variations to try:

• Cook the rice in advance. Wild rice always takes awhile to cook, so if you want to save yourself some time you can cook the rice up to 2 days in advance of assembling the stuffed peppers.
• Make them ahead of time. You can assemble this stuffed peppers recipe a day in advance. Place the peppers in a baking dish, cover them tightly with foil, and keep them in the fridge until you are ready to bake them.
• Add meat. For a heartier version of stuffed peppers, you can add some cooked ground meat. We especially like Italian sausage, but beef, turkey and chicken are all good. If the meat isn’t seasoned, be sure to add at least some salt and pepper when browning it. And be sure to drain off any fat before adding it to the filling mixture.
• Or try vegetarian meat. To keep this a vegetarian dish while adding more protein, add a vegetarian meat to the filling.
• Try different rice. If you want to try a different type of rice, white basmati rice or long-grain brown rice would be good substitutes for the wild rice. You could also use couscous or a tiny pasta shape such as orzo, for a different texture and flavor.
• Use different mushrooms. You can easily substitute white or cremini mushrooms for the baby portabello mushrooms in the filling.
• Add more vegetables. In addition to, or instead of, the mushrooms, try other vegetables! I often throw a handful of chopped spinach into the filling, along with the chopped mushrooms.

For another delicious stuffed peppers recipe, check out my Lasagna Stuffed Peppers!

What to Serve with Stuffed Peppers

Stuffed peppers are a fantastic side dish or a lighter main. Here are some of my favorite accompaniments to this stuffed peppers recipe:

• Salad. You can serve stuffed peppers with a vegetable-packed salad alongside. Try my roasted beet salad, broccoli salad, creamy cucumber salad, or juicy strawberry salad recipes.
• With a variety of meats. This vegetarian dish is a great side for meat, especially grilled or roasted meat. Try sugar grilled steak, honey mustard beef kabobs, or mustard pork loin roast.
• Grilled chicken and turkey. Poultry also works very well with stuffed peppers. Try these grilled chicken kabobs with grapes, grilled beer can chicken, and grilled turkey tenderloin recipes.
• Seafood. A pile of grilled shrimp or grilled scallops would be lovely with stuffed peppers with rice.
• A few other vegetable and salad sides. I often serve stuffed peppers with rice alongside other simple vegetable dishes like grilled asparagus or honey garlic carrots. Or do a side of pickled vegetables like quick pickled asparagus, squash, or carrots.
• Bread or cornbread. Try my honey cornbread muffins, buttery Texas toast, or popovers. They are great for mopping up all the deliciousness!

How to Store & Reheat Leftovers

Got leftovers? Here’s what to do with any leftover stuffed peppers:

• Fridge – Store leftover stuffed peppers in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 4 days.
• Freezer – Place stuffed peppers in an airtight freezer-safe container and freeze them for up to 3 months. Thaw the peppers in the fridge overnight before reheating them.
• To Reheat – Heat the peppers in a baking dish in the oven at 350° F until the cheese is melted and they are heated through.

More Easy Dinner Ideas

• Mandarin Chicken
• Slow Cooker Hungarian Goulash
• Cowboy Chicken
• Slow Cooker Sloppy Joes

This recipe comes from the pages of the beautiful Add a Pinch cookbook, by my friend Robyn. I’m betting you already know about her blog Add a Pinch.

I received a copy of the Add a Pinch cookbook for my review. All opinions are my own. This post was originally published in 2017, then updated in 2023.