Halloween Stuffed Peppers Jack O Lanterns
Halloween stuffed peppers are one of my favorite healthy Halloween main dishes, and I bet that your Halloween will be more fun serving these stuffed bell peppers, too! You can’t go wrong with Italian flavored beef, mushrooms, onions, and rice are all stuffed inside these perfectly festive peppers.
This healthy, easy Halloween food features orange bell peppers stuffed with a comfort food mixture of lean ground beef, rice, veggies, and homemade roasted bell pepper sauce. This is a kid-friendly meal that’s fun and festive!
I am a major lover of recipes for stuffed peppers. Well actually, sweet bell peppers in general. Red, yellow, orange, and green… they all bring fabulous flavor and color to meals and it’s the perfect way to sneak extra veggies into the diet. It’s actually one of the reasons we love our Slow Cooker Jambalaya so much – hide those peppers into dinner!
Well these stuffed peppers aren’t necessarily hiding peppers but it’s a fun way to get those veggies into those picky eaters diets.
So who’s ready to make some adorably cute Halloween eats?
These healthy Halloween stuffed peppers have a delicious roasted red bell pepper sauce that takes them a notch above ordinary stuffed pepper recipes.
Stuffed Peppers Jack O Lanterns are one of my favorite Halloween main dishes, and I bet they’ll be one of yours, too!
How these stuffed peppers can fit into speciality diet needs
Another reason I love stuffed pepper dinners is that they can be made low carb SO EASILY. Pretty much more reasons we love peppers. But here is how they can be adapted to fit other special diets.
- Low Carb – Simply swap the rice out with cauliflower rice! Seriously such an easy swap. You can buy pre-riced cauliflower in your local freezer section. We’ve been using those lately for convenience. They aren’t the more economical vs. making your own cauliflower riced but thats were we’ve splurged for easy life.
- Gluten-Free – These are actually already naturally gluten-free! Woot! No need to do anything extra with as this stuffed peppers recipe are naturally gluten-free!
- Healthier / WW – If you’d like to swap out the ground beef for another meat alternative like chicken or turkey that would be perfect for the weight watchers program.
- Vegetarian / Vegan – Another really simple swap to making these halloween stuffed peppers vegetarian and vegan would be to swap the meat out with a vegetarian replacement. You can find plenty of options in the store or you can always quickly make your own like this Homemade Vegetarian Meat Replacement by VeggieBalance
Halloween Stuffed Peppers Recipe Notes
Here are a few ways to get creative with this stuffed peppers recipe:
- Use traditional pasta sauce instead of the red pepper pasta sauce.
- Need an even healthier dinner? Substitute ground turkey or chicken for the beef.
- Fill the Halloween stuffed peppers jack-o-lanterns with any casserole filling that your family likes.
This Halloween stuffed peppers recipe is really easy to make. The only tricky part might be the carving of the peppers.
How to carve out these Jack O Lantern Peppers
This is not the step I’d recommend having your children help with. It does require a little work.
To make carving easier, I use an extra small vegetable carving knife. If your peppers won’t stand up well on their own, you can use the carving knife to shave off a small amount a pepper from the bottom. Just don’t cut too much off or you’ll cut a hole in the bottom, causing the stuffing to fall out.
Can these be made ahead of time?
Yes! We found that these can easily be made ahead of time AND they reheat very well too.
If you’d like to prep the peppers and then prepare the stuffing and stuff the peppers 24 hours in advance for the night before that will work! Simply pop in the oven the day of and dinner is served.
If for any reason you have leftovers simple store in an airtight container and either reheat in the oven or microwave. Really that easy peasy stuffed pepper cheesy.
Healthy Halloween Stuffed Peppers Jack-O-Lanterns
Ingredients
- 4 large orange bell peppers
- 1 cup cooked rice white or brown
- 1 Tablespoon avocado oil or other healthy cooking oil, plus additional for coating sheet pan.
- 1 pound lean ground beef ground turkey, or ground chicken
- 1 medium yellow onion diced small
- 8 ounces mushrooms chopped
- 2 cups roasted red pepper sauce homemade or store-bought
- 1 teaspoon dried Italian seasoning
- ¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes
- salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
- Heat oven to 350 degrees F.
- Use a sharp knife to slice the top off each bell pepper horizontally. Set tops aside (do not discard) Remove all seeds and membranes. Rinse and pat the peppers dry with paper toweling or a clean, soft cloth. Use a small paring knife to cut holes into the exterior of the peppers to make jack-o-lantern faces. Note: If peppers don’t stand upright, use the knife to slice a small amount from the bottom to flatten the surface.
- Cook rice according to package directions. As rice cooks, use olive oil or non-stick spray to lightly grease a small sheet pan. Arrange peppers and tops of peppers on pan and cook in oven for 20-25 minutes, or until peppers are cooked, but still are still firm (al dente). Remove peppers from oven and allow to cool while you make the filling.
FOR THE FILLING:
- Heat 1 Tablespoon olive oil in large skillet over medium heat. Add onion and mushrooms and saute for 3-4 minutes, or until mushrooms have softened and reduced in size. Increase heat to medium high. Add ground meat and spices to pan and continue to cook, stirring occasionally, until no pink remains.
- Drain excess grease from pan, reduce heat to medium low, then add red pepper pasta sauce and cooked rice. Stir to combine and cook for 2-3 more minutes, or until mixture is heated through.
- Prior to serving, fill each pepper with approximately 1 cup of mixture, over filling each pepper slightly. Place a top onto each stuffed pepper and serve with a big jack-o-lantern smile!
Nutrition
More Bell Pepper Recipes
Wow Becca! Your post looks amazing! You do such a wonderful job. I love that cruset!
Awe. Thanks, Des! Good luck in the giveaway!
How incredibly cute! I can’t get Dudette to eat stuffed peppers yet, but I’m thinking the jack-o-lantern theme might just entice her. And I say stuff away! So much good stuff in there, it’s worth getting the frown instead of the smile. 🙂
Thanks so much, Christiane! I know all about picky eaters, but I’m tellin’ ya… cute food usually wins ’em over. 🙂
You have a cup of cooked rice listed twice. Is it supposed to be that way? And to answer your question about a favorite pepper recipe – Stuffed Pepper Soup is really good. I think I may just have to go make some of that now…
Thanks for catching that error! I’ll edit the recipe accordingly!
These are too adorable! Can’t wait to try them for my favorite holiday!
Thanks, Amy! Please stop by my Facebook page and share your photos with me! I’d love to see your cute food creation!
These peppers are so unbelievably cute! How creative of you! Your stuffing sounds delicious too… This is such a fun recipe
Thanks so much, Shaina! I love making food fun!
Those adorable little guys look delicious.
Thanks so much, Camilla! I’m still working my way through the pepper party. SO much good food out there! <3
It’s not a recipe per se but I love serving dips in bell peppers.
My favorite recipe is pretty similar… I LOVE stuffed peppers! They are so filling & satisfying & really the perfect way to use a bunch of peppers up!
Those are so incredibly adorable. We tried those last year and ours really just didn’t come out even remotely as cute as yours. Plus the stuffing sounds sooo good! Great recipe!
Thanks so much, Nicole!
Previous to this, I would stuff the peppers BEFORE baking them. I truly think baking them empty helps to keep the moisture out of the walls of the pepper, which is usually what causes them to wrinkle up so much.
I use bell peppers in a lot of my recipes but my favorite probably is using them in stirfries
These are almost too cute to eat! (almost…)
ALMOST, indeed! Although, I did wish Mr. Pepper a happy Halloween before I chomped his lip off 😉
Love the creativity behind these peppers! Spooky cute
Thanks, Carla! <3
I love rajas, the sauteed pepper-onion dish, with queso fresco and served in warm tortillas. But a vegetarian version of these jack-o’-lantern stuffed peppers might be my new favorite!
Thanks for stopping by, Tracy! Now I’m craving Rajas! 😉
My favorite recipe is the Jack o Lantern stuffed bell peppers. They look delicious
Thank you so much, Melisa!
I love stuffed peppers. Your recipe sounds amazing. I will have to try it out. I just made sausage and quinoa stuffed pepper and it was so good!
I love stuffed peppers too, Kristi. I’ll be sure to check out your quinoa stuffed peppers… they sound fantastic!
Delicious and so festive! I use store-bought pasta sauce and also add a cup of grated cheese to the mixture before stuffing the peppers. I’ve not made it the night before and reheated it the following night, but am anxious to try it for a quickly prepared Halloween night dinner this week. I wish there had been more info provided for reheating, though. It just says to pop them in the oven, but is it the same temperature given for the same-night cooking, for the same amount of time? Covered or no? I’m concerned about the rice drying out and the peppers overcooking.
I’ve done both ways actually Covering and Not Covering when reheating (once I was out of aluminum foil lol). Really you are heating it JUST ENOUGH to make things hot again so I didn’t see any huge difference in drying the rice or overcooking the peppers. When I mentioned about making it the night before though I meant to prepare it all up UNTIL the baking portion. Store in the refrigerator that night and pop into the oven the following night. Hope this helps!
FUN, FUN, FUN!! I made this with cauliflower rice and beyond meat. Turned out wonderful! With leftovers! I added some chili powder and some red pepper flakes but it wound up to not be enough for my kids to notice.
I did make this the night before and it turned out okay. I don’t feel I reheated them for long enough (10 minutes @ 350 F).