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I always loved stuffed peppers, I don’t even know why I haven’t posted this recipe earlier! My mum used to make a similar dish, it was filled with a mixture of rice and meat. I make this quite often as even though it looks quite like a crowdpleaser, this meal is super simple. And healthy! I do love cooking with peppers, another favourite recipe I quite often make these days is a Mediterranean Chickpea Salad with Roasted Romano Peppers & Feta.
Nutritious Stuffed Peppers
They’re super nutritious, packed with minerals, antioxidants, and vitamins C, B-6, and A. And they are quite low in calories too – if that matters to you. Although, not a complete protein, cooked couscous is still a good source, providing about 7g per 100g. The feta cheese makes this recipe even more nutritious. You can also drizzle with some greek yogurt.
Tips for Making Stuffed Peppers
They can be served as a starter, a side dish or even a main course.
For this recipe, I never pre-roast the peppers, because I like the firmness and the texture to them. You can also swap normal couscous to giant couscous and pumpkin to butternut squash.
I also tend to use tricolour peppers to make them look colourful – plus everyone has a preferred colour of bell pepper, right? Mine is green, I love its bitterness.
Herbs are also pretty much interchangeable and you can skip coriander if you want to (I know it’s not everyone’s favourite, fun fact: this is coded in your DNA!) and replace it with parsley for example. You can skip the chilli flakes entirely if you don’t like spicy food.
Naturally, leaving the feta cheese out will result in a vegan version of this recipe, but you can always swap the regular feta cheese for vegan feta.
For me, I prefer eating them whilst warm, but they are very good as a cold buffet item too, just cover them in the fridge so that the couscous don’t go dry.
Enjoy.
Couscous Stuffed Peppers with Pumpkin and Feta
Ingredients
- 3 large bell peppers tricolour if possible
- 50 g cooked couscous
- 80 g peeled and diced pumpkin 1cm x 1cm cubes
- 80 g cubed feta cheese 1cm x 1cm cubes
- 250 ml vegetable stock
- 1 handful toasted pine nuts
- 1/2 tsp chilli flakes
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 1 handful fresh mint chopped
- 1 handful fresh coriander chopped
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 180 Celsius. Evenly scatter the pumpkin pieces on a baking tray, toss with olive oil, salt, pepper and the chilli flakes. Roast . them for 15 minutes or until they are soft. When they are ready, set them aside.Prepare the stock and after you placed the couscous into a heat resistant bowl, pour the stock over it, cover with a plate and let it soak. When all the liquid is absorbed and the couscous is tender - it's ready.
- Toast the pine nuts (unless you bought toasted pine nuts) and chop the herbs and the feta cheese. Halve the peppers and deseed them.Mix everything in a bowl.
- Stuff the peppers with the couscous, drizzle with olive oil and bake them on a baking tray for 10-15 minutes. 180 Celsius is perfect for this. (You can use the same baking tray you used for roasting the pumpkin.)
- Serve immediately. Enjoy!
