Stuffed peppers make delicious and easy comfort food in a snap and will be something the entire family will enjoy! If you’re following a low carb program, have no worries since these are low carb keto stuffed peppers without rice too.
If you’ve been looking for a recipe for stuffed peppers without rice, you’ll LOVE this version! It tastes just like the classic recipe and it’s kid-friendly too.
Stuffed Bell Peppers Without Rice
Traditional stuffed peppers include ground beef, tomatoes, rice, seasoning, and cheese. Since we’re following a low carb diet, we still wanted to keep the flavors of traditional stuffed peppers but wanted to make them keto-friendly and with no rice.
You won’t even miss the rice in this inexpensive comfort food recipe, and to be honest, I think easy stuffed peppers taste even better with no rice. With a rich comforting filling, flavorful low carb tomato sauce, and gooey cheese, you won’t ever miss the carbs.
You’ll love the blend of 2 savory meats, cheese, and healthy vegetables, these low carb stuffed peppers only have 7 net carbs for each serving!
If you’re looking for more low carb and keto stuffed peppers recipes, you’ll definitely want to check out our stuffed pepper soup recipe and Philly cheesesteak stuffed peppers too.
Keto Stuffed Peppers
Here are the ingredients we used for our keto stuffed peppers without rice recipe:
Ground meat– We used ground beef with 20% fat and also ground Italian sausage. I’m a huge fan of using what you have at home or what’s on sale, so you could still make these low carb peppers with all beef, ground turkey, all Italian sausage, ground pork or ground chicken.
Vegetables – We used a low carb chunky marinara sauce so that the peppers would hold their shape and the filling wouldn’t get too liquidy. If you decide to swap with tomato sauce, I’d suggest increasing the seasoning and also know that the filling might be a little runny (but will still taste fabulous!)
Our recipe also used cauliflower rice instead of rice, you can also substitute riced broccoli.
Cheese– Our recipe used a shredded Mexican cheese blend, you could also use cheddar cheese or colby cheese
Can You Eat Green Peppers on Keto?
If you’re following a keto diet like my husband, you might be wondering if you can even eat green peppers or other types of peppers on a keto program. A keto program will have you eating a maximum of 20 net carbs per day, so as long as you still to protein, no carb dairy and no carb snacks the rest of the day, you can enjoy low carb stuffed peppers for dinner.
Stuffed peppers with no rice are actually a perfect keto friendly meal and is one of my husbands favorites!
By themselves, a whole green pepper has 6 carbs, 2 grams of fiber, and 4 net carbs per pepper. The yellow, red, and orange peppers have 7 carbs per whole pepper.
For our recipe, we cut the peppers in half and filled them to the brim with a low carb savory filling to keep these stuffed peppers with no rice as low carb as possible.
Stuffed Peppers Without Rice
Wash the peppers and cut in half lengthwise. Scoop out the seeds and white membrane.
Whether you want to remove the green stem piece is optional, as you can see I have some peppers with the stem and others without. Even after stuffing the peppers, the low carb pepper filling does not fall out.
Coat an oven proof dish with cooking spray, and place the bell pepper halves in the dish. Season with salt and pepper.
Saute the ground beef (and/or Italian sausage or ground turkey) until browned, which takes approximately 5 minutes. Drain the grease and set the meat aside in a small bowl.
Saute the olive oil, onion, chopped garlic, and riced broccoli for 4-5 minutes on medium heat, until softened.
Add chunky marinara sauce, ground basil, sea salt, and ground pepper and simmer for 2 minutes.
Stir in beef and Italian sausage mixture and cook until heated through.
Turn off the heat and stir in 1/2 cup of 3 cheese blend shredded cheese.
Spoon meat mixture equally into the peppers.
Add a little sauce on top and a sprinkle of cheese.
Pile the filling nice and high into the stuffed peppers, it’s not going to spill over the sides.
Cover the pan with foil and bake for 30 minutes.
Remove foil and continue cooking 15-20 minutes more until the pepper is soft, starting to bubble and easy to cut through.
Serve and enjoy! Feel free to garnish the low carb stuffed peppers with green onions, chives, cilantro or just leave as is.
Stuffed Pepper Substitutions
One thing I love about making stuffed peppers is how easy it is to change up the ingredients for what you have on hand. While we used part ground beef and part Italian sausage, you could also make these yummy peppers with one kind of meat or even substitute ground turkey or ground chicken if you want to make them a little leaner. These all make great protein ideas:
ground beef
ground turkey
ground chicken
Italian sausage
Italian chicken sausage
ground pork
While we used a variety of colored peppers for this low carb stuffed pepper variation, you can definitely use just green, yellow, orange or red peppers, depending on your personal preference.
If you’re trying to make keto stuffed peppers, using green peppers does decrease the total carb count by 1 net carb.
Although this recipe is only 7 net carbs per serving, to make as close to no carb stuffed peppers as you can make them, you can skip the cauliflower rice and just add more meat.
Really, you could even skip the peppers and just eat the yummy filling too and turn it into a low carb savory casserole!
What to Serve with Stuffed Peppers
While you can definitely serve your stuffed peppers without rice as is since it’s already filled with protein, dairy and vegetables, sometimes it’s nice to have at least one other simple dish to put on your plate.
Here’s a few ideas on what to serve with your low carb and keto stuffed peppers:
kale caesar salad
shaved brussel sprouts salad
low carb broccoli slaw
cucumber salad
sauted mushrooms
Did I miss anything? What do you like to serve with low carb stuffed peppers?
Can I Freeze Stuffed Peppers?
One of the things I like most about stuffed peppers, is that they’re easy to put together and use for meal prepped lunches and dinners.
I’m a huge fan of batch cooking and doubling or tripling recipes so I can freeze some for later.
If you’re wondering if you can freeze stuffed peppers, the answer is yes you can! One important thing to note about freezing stuffed peppers is that the ice will increase the liquid in the peppers and they’ll be a little runnier than if you’d put your low carb stuffed peppers without rice directly in the oven.
When I’m cooking peppers from frozen, I actually put them directly in the oven from the freezer and just add 15 minutes to the cooking time. If you need the peppers quickly for a lunch on the go, I’d recommend microwaving them from frozen for 3 minutes at 50% power. Increase the microwave time in 1 minute increments if your peppers aren’t fulled heated after 3 minutes.
If you’re looking for other easy and low carb comfort food recipes you’ll also love our instant pot low carb beer brats, low carb swedish meatballs, and 20 minute paleo beef stoganoff.
We’d love to know what you think about our low carb stuffed peppers without rice recipe! Please share your low carb stuffed peppers photos and comments on the post or on the Pinterest pin.
Stuffed Peppers Without Rice
Easy and delicious stuffed peppers without rice make a comforting and low cost low carb, gluten free, sugar free and keto meal.
Ingredients
- 3 bell peppers, any color
- 1 lb ground beef (Italian sausage or turkey work well too)
- 1/2 cup yellow onion, chopped
- 3 tsp minced garlic cloves
- 2 cups riced cauliflower
- 1 1/4 cup chunky marinara sauce (sugar free)
- 1 tsp dried basil
- 1/2 tsp sea salt
- 1/4 ground pepper
- 1/2 cup 3 cheese blend
- 1 tsp chives, optional
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- Wash bell peppers, cut them in half and remove the membrane and seeds
- Place peppers in a baking dish, cut side up and sprinkle with a little salt and pepper
- Cook ground meat in a pan for 6-7 minutes until cooked through. Drain the grease and set the meat aside in a bowl
- Saute chopped onion, garlic, and riced cauliflower for 4-5 minutes, until softened
- Add marinara sauce, dried basil, 1/2 tsp sea salt and 1/4 tsp ground black pepper to the same pan, mix together and simmer on medium low for 2 minutes until heated through
- Stir in ground meat and cook until heated through
- Stir in 1/2 cup of shredded cheese
- Spoon the meat and sauce mixture into the peppers, add a small spoonful of marinara on the top and a sprinkle of cheese to each pepper half.
- Cover with foil and bake for 30 minutes
- Garnish with chives if desired, optional
- Enjoy!
Nutrition Information
Yield 6 Serving Size 1/2 pepperAmount Per Serving Calories 413Total Fat 34gSaturated Fat 16gTrans Fat 1gUnsaturated Fat 14gCholesterol 149mgSodium 786mgCarbohydrates 9gFiber 2gSugar 0gProtein 43g
I suggest you calculate the nutritional content of the ingredients you're using and to just use the one in the recipe as a general estimate. Calories and carbs can vary by ingredients. make sure to use sugar free marina sauce.
Akash says
Hi Jen, thanks for sharing the recipe. It really looks delicious, definitely going to try it!
WholeLottaYum says
Thank you so much! Enjoy!
Monica says
My peppers are super crunchy after cooking for 30 minutes covered. Are they supposed to be?
Stephanie M. says
I always boil my peppers first so they’re softened and then add the stuffing & bake. So much better that way.
WholeLottaYum says
Thanks for the feedback, Stephanie! I’ll probably add other ways to cook the peppers since cooking on the stovetop or in a microwave IS faster than baking. We included baking the peppers just to keep the instructions to one type of cooking method.
Kathleen says
Left out cauliflower. I did not precook meat but stuffed peppers. Put some tomato sauce in the pan.
Left open in oven for twice the time so peppers cooked. Put cheese on at end.
Delicious