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!
Annette says
I love this recipe and make it often. I use more than 3 bell peppers. Then I use the recipe as is. It’s easy to make. My husband didn’t like stuffed bell peppers so when he was still living I didn’t make them. Now I make them as often as I like. Thanks for the recipe.
Annette says
I love the stuffed bell peppers. I now make them often. They were easy to make and come out just like the recipe. Thanks so much.
Stacey S. says
I'm going to cook to ight but leave out the cauliflower rice. Yum!
cheryl borgen says
Your print version of this recipe does NOT have the item 9. Remove foil and cook for another 15-20 minutes until the peppers are soft and easy to cut.
Having cooked peppers before, I knew that 30 minutes at 350 was not enough to soften the peppers. Please fix the print version especially for those who are not well versed with how to cook bell peppers. Thanks!
Linda says
Can I eat the leftovers for the third day now ( being tight fly sealed in refrigerator) ?
Linda says
How long can I store the meat filling in the fridge ?
Ana says
So delicious! I’ve made this twice and froze some to make through out the week. For those that freeze this meal as meal prep I recommend reheating in the oven for about 45-50 min, 30 min foil covered the rest of the time without the foil at the posted temp
Geri says
After 30 the peppers were not tender.
sunni says
could not find this elusive sugar free chunky marinara sauce. at Walmart where do you get it ?
WholeLottaYum says
Hi Sunni, I use Rao's marinara. It's naturally thick and chunky and is the only one on the market that tastes like homemade marinara sauce. Walmart hands down as the best price, I buy it in bulk from there.
Beverly says
I was wondering for the riced cauliflower- should it be frozen or fresh? I've never made anything like this so I want to get it right 🙂 Thank you for posting this recipe, it looks great!
WholeLottaYum says
I've only ever tried it with fresh, but I'd think frozen would work too! Just defrost it fully and drain any liquid (if there is any).
Donna says
Very good!! Will make again. I will bake uncooked & added tomato sauce next time.
Sherree says
Definitely will be repeating. Delicious!!!
Jack Murray says
This was really tasty and surprisingly I could not tell I had used cauliflower in the recipe. Thanks!
Debbieinwv says
Absolutely….delish!
WholeLottaYum says
Thank you so much!! We appreciate your feedback 🙂
Ellen says
It’s a great recipe only I like you can switch things up a bit. I prefer not cooking the meat (turkey) I stuff and bake them