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Home » Dinner » The Best Stuffed Peppers Without Rice (Low Carb!)

The Best Stuffed Peppers Without Rice (Low Carb!)

Published: Feb 25, 2019 · Modified: Apr 18, 2020 by WholeLottaYum · This post may contain affiliate links · Find our privacy policy here

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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

keto stuffed peppers make an easy dinner recipe

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.

keto peppers

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 peppers no rice

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.

Continue to Content
stuffed peppers no rice

Stuffed Peppers Without Rice

Yield: 6 servings
Prep Time: 5 minutes
Cook Time: 33 minutes
Total Time: 38 minutes

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

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
  2. Wash bell peppers, cut them in half and remove the membrane and seeds
  3. Place peppers in a baking dish, cut side up and sprinkle with a little salt and pepper
  4. Cook ground meat in a pan for 6-7 minutes until cooked through. Drain the grease and set the meat aside in a bowl
  5. Saute chopped onion, garlic, and riced cauliflower for 4-5 minutes, until softened
  6. 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
  7. Stir in ground meat and cook until heated through
  8. Stir in 1/2 cup of shredded cheese
  9. 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.
  10. Cover with foil and bake for 30 minutes
  11. Garnish with chives if desired, optional
  12. Enjoy!
Nutrition Information
Yield 6 Serving Size 1/2 pepper
Amount Per Serving Calories 413Total Fat 34gSaturated Fat 16gTrans Fat 1gUnsaturated Fat 14gCholesterol 149mgSodium 786mgCarbohydrates 9gNet Carbohydrates 7gFiber 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.

Did you make this recipe?

Please leave a comment on the blog or share a photo on Instagram

© bigscoots
Category: Dinner

Beef stuffed peppers with no rice that are low carb and keto stuffed peppers too

Previous Post: « 30 Days of Low Carb 30 Minute Meals
Next Post: The 18 Best Low Carb Chips Recipes (+ No Carb Chips & Chips to Buy) »

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Marie says

    February 16, 2021 at 10:09 pm

    These stuffed peppers are awesome!! My family loves them. There so easy to make thanks for sharing.

    Reply
  2. Monica says

    January 09, 2021 at 5:41 pm

    I left out the salt and substituted some mrs dash to lower the sodium content. It was delicious!

    Reply
  3. Vicky says

    November 18, 2020 at 9:36 pm

    I’m definitely going to try this, I always do my stuffed peppers in the slow cooker, but I am going to try the oven because I think al dente peppers would be really good.

    Reply
  4. Suzanne says

    October 13, 2020 at 10:33 pm

    So made these tonight, been on keto 10 days, no cheating! Added half a jar medium salsa instead of marinara sauce…did the cauliflower rice and the rest…these were amazing!

    Reply
    • WholeLottaYum says

      October 15, 2020 at 1:21 pm

      Thank you so much for your feedback! And congrats for doing so well on keto! You got this!

      Reply
  5. Mary F. says

    August 31, 2020 at 3:36 pm

    Made this last week. Was pretty easy to make. Turned out good. My husband thought they needed a little more tomato flavor so I may add a can of tomato sauce next time to satisfy him. I have always used a full pepper; however, I sliced in half this time and they were so easy to serve. They were big peppers so 1/2 was perfect. Froze the leftovers for later. Will be keeping this recipe for making future stuffed peppers.

    Reply
  6. Kathleen says

    July 13, 2020 at 7:43 pm

    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

    Reply
  7. John K says

    May 30, 2020 at 2:06 am

    These were delicious, and I will make them again, but you left out a step in the Printable recipe, namely the uncover and cook for another 20 minutes.. It’s in the notes on what to serve it with and how easy the are to store, but not the part to soften the peppers…

    Reply
  8. Linda says

    May 22, 2020 at 11:32 pm

    This recipe is delicious. I was actually able to fill 6 peppers with this recipe.

    Reply
  9. Monica says

    October 18, 2019 at 6:17 pm

    My peppers are super crunchy after cooking for 30 minutes covered. Are they supposed to be?

    Reply
    • Stephanie M. says

      June 11, 2020 at 3:53 pm

      I always boil my peppers first so they’re softened and then add the stuffing & bake. So much better that way.

      Reply
      • WholeLottaYum says

        June 11, 2020 at 10:41 pm

        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.

  10. Akash says

    March 06, 2019 at 7:11 am

    Hi Jen, thanks for sharing the recipe. It really looks delicious, definitely going to try it!

    Reply
    • WholeLottaYum says

      March 18, 2019 at 11:35 pm

      Thank you so much! Enjoy!

      Reply

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