Make the best cheesy stuffed peppers without rice using both ground beef and Italin ground sausage. Cauliflower rice makes a terrific swap for the classic white rice, making this the ultimate keto and low carb comfort food dinner.
Our stuffed bell peppers no rice are so good!
Traditional stuffed peppers include ground beef, tomatoes, rice, seasoning, and cheese. Since we're following a low carb eating plan, we still wanted to keep the flavors of traditional stuffed peppers but wanted to make them keto-friendly and with no rice.
With a rich comforting filling using both beef and Italian sausage, a flavorful low carb tomato sauce, and gooey cheese, you won't ever miss the carbs. Each pepper has just 7 net carbs per serving!
Our popular recipe was written in 2019 and most of the photos were updated in 2024.
Ingredients you'll need
- Bell peppers - use green, red, orange, or yellow or a mix of all of these. Green peppers have 1 less carb than the other varieties.
- Ground meat- We used ground beef and ground Italian sausage. Any ground meat would be great here like all beef, ground turkey, all Italian sausage, Italian chicken sausage, ground pork, or ground chicken.
- Cauliflower rice- Raw riced cauliflower or even riced broccoli would be good.
- Onion - white, yellow, sweet, or red
- Marinara sauce- We used a chunky marinara sauce so the filling wouldn't get too liquidy.
- Cheese- Our recipe used a shredded Mexican cheese blend, you could also use cheddar cheese, or Colby cheese. Shredding cheese from a block will have less carbs than pre-shredded cheese, plus it melts better.
- Seasonings - fine sea salt, ground black pepper, minced garlic, basil. We used fresh basil since we had it in our garden, feel free to use dried basil instead. 1 tablespoon of fresh equals 1 teaspoon dried.
This is just an overview of the ingredients and recipe steps, the full instructions are at the bottom in the recipe card.
How to Make Stuffed Peppers With Cauliflower Rice
Wash the peppers and cut them 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.
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 cauliflower for 4-5 minutes on medium heat, until softened.
Add chunky marinara sauce, chopped 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 ½ cup of 3 cheese blend shredded cheese.
Spoon meat mixture equally into the peppers. Pile the filling nice and high into the stuffed peppers, it's not going to spill over the sides.
Add a little more marinara sauce on top and a sprinkle of cheese. Cover the pan with foil and bake for 30 minutes.
Remove foil and continue cooking for 15-20 minutes more until the pepper is soft, starting to bubble and easy to cut through. Enjoy!
Freezing and reheating
Yes, you can freeze leftover stuffed peppers! The ice crystals do add a bit of moisture to the peppers, so for best results, bake them from frozen and don't defrost them first.
Add 15 minutes to the recipe cooking time if they're frozen. 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.
More stuffed pepper recipes
- Philly cheese steak peppers
- Tuna stuffed peppers
- Italian stuffed bell peppers
- Stuffed pepper soup
- What to serve with stuffed bell peppers
Recipe
Keto Stuffed Peppers Without Rice
Ingredients
- 3 bell peppers any color
- 1 lb ground beef Italian sausage or ground turkey or mix two meats
- ½ cup yellow onion chopped
- 3 teaspoon minced garlic cloves
- 2 cups raw riced cauliflower
- 1 ¼+ cup chunky marinara sauce sugar free like Rao's
- 1 teaspoon dried basil or 1 tablespoon chopped fresh basil
- ½ teaspoon fine sea salt
- ¼ ground black pepper
- ½-1 cup shredded Colby Jack cheese not pre-shredded, see note below
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
- 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 the marinara sauce, dried basil, sea salt, and 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 ½ cup shredded cheese.
- Spoon the meat and sauce mixture into the peppers, add a small spoonful of marinara on the top, and more shredded cheese to the top of each bell pepper.
- Cover with foil and bake for 30 minutes. Garnish with green onion slices or fresh parsley. Remove the foil and finish baking until the pepper is cooked through to your liking (10-15+ more minutes). Enjoy!
Samantha says
When reheating frozen ones- How long would you recommend cooking for? I’ve seen some conflicting answers on google
WholeLottaYum says
I'm not 100% positive. But I'd use the same temperature as the recipe, keep them covered in foil until they're almost heated through and then remove the foil for the last 15 minutes of cooking. They could take 40 mins+ as a best guess?
Sue Mitchell says
I am allergic to broccoli and califlower do you have a suggestion to replace the vegetable? Would zucchini work you think chopped finely.
WholeLottaYum says
I think finely chopped zucchini would work as well!
Mandy says
This was absolutely amazing!! My husband and I couldn't stop raving! One of the best meals we have ever made. I bragged and shared the link to everyone on Facebook! Haha! Thanks for sharing!
Marcell says
Please fix the cooking times in the recipe!!!
Amber says
This is a regular meal in our home now as I don’t eat carbs only sparingly.
We found this almost a year ago & make it weekly if not every other week! One of our favorites
My boys don’t eat the peppers but love the meat stuffing & eats it by itself as a meal. They even hate cauliflower but love this!
We have not had no problem in the multiple numerous times making this with the cooking time.
Amber says
We also use our homemade keto sauce we can made with Splenda as the marinade sauce!
This is absolutely delicious
Marie says
These stuffed peppers are awesome!! My family loves them. There so easy to make thanks for sharing.
Monica says
I left out the salt and substituted some mrs dash to lower the sodium content. It was delicious!
Vicky says
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.
Suzanne says
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!
WholeLottaYum says
Thank you so much for your feedback! And congrats for doing so well on keto! You got this!
Mary F. says
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.
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
John K says
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...
Linda says
This recipe is delicious. I was actually able to fill 6 peppers with this recipe.
Adelaide Randak says
The discussion prior to the recipe says to cover the compiled peppers, bake for 30 minutes, remove cover and contain baking for 10 more minutes. The recipe that follows makes no mention of the second 10 minute bake. Am I missing something.
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.
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!