Greek Stuffed Peppers and Tomatoes
Greek Stuffed Peppers and Tomatoes are a traditional dish often enjoyed during the spring and summer, yet are delicious all year long. Generally a serving for each person is two vegetables if enjoyed as a main course.
Servings: 8 people
Ingredients
Filling
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 2 onions medium (or a bit less)
- 500 g ground veal (or beef if necessary)
- 1 tbsp tomato paste
- 500 g tomatoes chopped (fresh or canned) (see notes)
- 2 handfuls flat leaf parsley finely chopped
- 2 pinches mint (spearmint) dried (about 3 times more if fresh)
- pepper
- salt
- water
Vegetables
- 8 bell pepper (see notes)
- 6 wax pepper (see notes)
- 2 beefsteak tomato
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- salt
Stuffing Vegetabes
- 16 tbs arborio rice or Carolina rice uncooked (see notes)
- 200 ml water
- 2 tbsp olive oil
Instructions
Filling
- Put a pan over high heat over the stove. When hot, pour the olive oil in the pan.
- Add minced onions to the pan. Continue to cook about 2 to 3 minutes.
- Add the ground veal, mix and continue over the high heat until completely brown and cooked.
- Reduce the heat to medium. Add the chopped tomatoes (fresh or canned) and the tomato paste. Mix and continue to cook about 2 minutes.
- Add the chopped parsley, mint, salt and pepper.
- Add enough water to cover the meat mixture completely. Remove from stove.
Vegetables
- Clean the peppers and beefsteak tomatoes. Cut the tops off the peppers. Empty the vegetables. Discard only the tops of the wax peppers and the insides of both wax and bell peppers. You will need the tops of the bell peppers later. Keep the insides of the beefsteak tomatoes (to add at time of other chopped tomatoes in the filling)
- Put a little olive oil and salt inside each of the hollowed vegetables.
Stuffing Vegetables and Baking
- Add the uncooked rice to the meat filling. (If the vegetables are bigger than normal, add a bit more rice).
- Stuff each vegetable until 2/3 full. Place the tops on the bell peppers.
- Place the vegetables in a baking dish. You want them to be snug so they don't fall over.
- Pour olive oil on top of the vegetables. Add the water to the bottom of the baking dish.
- Place in an oven preheated to 200°C / 400°F (uncovered). Cook about 25 - 30 minutes until the skins of the peppers start becoming black (so you can remove them more easily).
- Optional: If you want to remove the skins of the peppers, carefully remove them. Or else you can serve with the skins and let anyone who wants to remove them to do it himself / herself.
- Serve 2 stuffed vegetables per person.
- Optional: You can serve them with crumbled feta cheese on top or with some modified tzatziki sauce (tzatziki without garlic). If you add the feta cheese reduce the salt slightly in the recipe for the filling.
Notes
- Add the flesh of the tomatoes removed to the tomatoes added to the meat mixture.
- You can use all colors of peppers for your dish. The traditional choice would be tomatoes and green bell potatoes, However, some people prefer the mild flavor of the yellow, medium flavor of the red pepper or the stronger flavor of the green peppers. In general, the green wax peppers are more mild than the green bell peppers. The choice of color is therefore a question of preference.
- Greeks generally use Carolina rice which is similar to Arborio rice used for risotto, but perhaps slightly softer.
Nutrition
Nutrition Facts
Greek Stuffed Peppers and Tomatoes
Amount Per Serving
Calories 393
Calories from Fat 135
% Daily Value*
Fat 15g23%
Saturated Fat 3g19%
Polyunsaturated Fat 2g
Monounsaturated Fat 9g
Cholesterol 51mg17%
Sodium 180mg8%
Potassium 1011mg29%
Carbohydrates 50g17%
Fiber 6g25%
Sugar 13g14%
Protein 18g36%
Vitamin A 0IU0%
Vitamin C 0mg0%
Calcium 0mg0%
Iron 0mg0%
* Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet.