I’ve been quite astonished with the red pepper selection at the farmer’s market the last few weeks. Usually I see these giant non-organic peppers at the grocery store and think they’re just loaded up with hormones because they’re so big. However, I found a pepper the size of my face last week at the market and couldn’t believe that it was organic. There are so many ways to stuff peppers but in an effort to be gluten free and dairy free, I whipped up this recipe for a delicious taste.

Serves: 4-6

Hands-on time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 3 hours, 30 minutes

Gluten free, vegan, vegetarian, dairy free, soy free

Ingredients

1 cup quinoa

1 1/2 lbs lean ground beef (or turkey) (omit if vegan or vegetarian)

1 small onion

1 can black beans (or 1 cup dried beans, make your own!)

2 cloves garlic

½ tablespoon italian seasoning

½ teaspoon chili flakes

1 16 oz can diced tomatoes, undrained

1 cup chicken broth

6 bell peppers (red, green, yellow or orange)

3 tbsp nutritional yeast (you can use shredded cheese if you’d like)

Directions

1. Bring 2 cups of water to a boil. Stir in quinoa, cover and reduce heat to low. Cook 15-18 minutes or just until water is evaporated.
2. Brown beef, onion and garlic over medium high heat until no pink remains. Drain any fat.
3. Stir in ⅔ of the can of tomatoes, seasoning, chili flakes and nutritional yeast. Add in quinoa and remove from heat.
4. Cut the tops off of your peppers and place in your slow cooker. Fill each ½ way with the rice mixture. They may overflow and that is okay.
5. Spoon remaining tomatoes and broth over top of peppers and cook on high about 3 hours or until soft. Sprinkle with nutritional yeast.
6. Enjoy!