Air fryer stuffed peppers with rice & vegan sausage
Cozy stuffed peppers just got a whole lot faster thanks to the air fryer. They are filled with rice, vegan sausage, marinara, onions, and garlic. Finish with a spoonful of shredded non-dairy cheese on top. So much yum!Most stuffed bell pepper recipes use one pepper per person. But for me, that always ends up being too big of a serving. I prefer to have half a pepper per person. Of course, if you’re really hungry, you can eat both halves!
Servings: 2 people
Calories: 298kcal
Ingredients
- 1 teaspoon avocado oil or your preferred oil
- 1 Beyond Meat sausage sliced (or your preferred veggie sausage)
- ½ cup chopped yellow onion
- 2 cloves garlic minced
- 1 cup cooked brown rice or white, if you prefer
- ¼ cup marinara
- ¼ teaspoon dried oregano
- ¼ teaspoon dried basil
- ¼ teaspoon granulated onion
- Pinch of salt
- Dash of pepper
- 2 Tablespoons shredded non-dairy cheese Optional
- 1 large red bell pepper
Instructions
- Bring a large skillet to a medium heat with oil. Add the sausage slices to the skillet. As it browns, break up the sausage a little in the pan with your spatula.
- Once the sausage is brown, add onions and garlic to the skillet. Saute a few minutes, until fragrant.
- Add the cooked rice, marinara, dried oregano, dried basil, granulated onion, pinch of salt, and dash of pepper. Use the spatula to make sure everything is fully combined. Turn off the heat, and set the skillet aside.
- Cut the bell pepper in half, straight down the middle through the stem. Use your fingers to remove the seeds from inside the pepper halves, as well as any white membrane. You can leave the stem on for looks or pop it off with your fingers.
- Put the empty pepper halves face down into the air fryer. Air fry at 360 degrees for 6 minutes.
- Remove the pepper halves from the air fryer. Use a spoon to fill them with the rice mixture, making sure to fill all of the crevices. Fill them generously, so that there is a mound on top. Put the filled halves back into the air fryer, rice side up. Air fry at 360 degrees for 6 more minutes.
- During the last two minutes of cooking time, add a Tablespoon of shredded non-dairy cheese to each pepper, if you'd like. Continue until the cheese has melted.
- Remove the peppers from the air fryer and serve right away with a vegetable or salad.
Video
Notes
For perfect peppers, be sure to cook them on their own in the air fryer before adding the rice & sausage mixture. Otherwise, the filling is liable to get dried out & crunchy on top.
I use Beyond Meat hot Italian sausages for this recipe. They are gluten-free. You can also use Impossible sausage, which is also gluten free.
Or any Italian-style veggie sausage will work here. Herbivorous Butcher, Field Roast, and Tofurky all make good options. (Keep in mind they aren't gluten-free, though, if that matters to you.)
You may have some rice mixture leftover. Bell peppers vary a lot in size. So I prefer to err on the side of too much filling rather than not enough. You may have enough leftover filling for half or all of a second bell pepper. Or you can just eat the filling on its own as a side.
For the non-dairy cheese, I recommend a mozzarella or parmesan-style cheese. If you'd prefer to have it cheeseless, just leave it off.
Nutrition
Calories: 298kcal | Carbohydrates: 40g | Protein: 13g | Fat: 9g | Saturated Fat: 2g | Sodium: 598mg | Potassium: 410mg | Fiber: 7g | Sugar: 6g | Vitamin A: 1996IU | Vitamin C: 82mg | Calcium: 35mg | Iron: 11mg
