Chicken Stuffed Bell Peppers-Recipe

If you asked me for any of my recipes I honestly wouldn't be able to write it down for you until now. Until I started having to measure everything for healthy meals I always just went with my gut. Actually having to write measurements down as I tried recipes was weird. My lack of measuring is what has caused me to not be much into baking. I can cook just about everything, but hand me a recipe for a cake or some other baked good and I'll not be a happy camper.

Last week we introduced our Chicken Stuffed Bell Peppers. So far they've been a huge hit. The recipe is actually quite simple and I'll share it with you right here. If you google "stuffed bell peppers" you'll come across tons of variations to this meal. You can stuff a pepper with anything your heart desires. I'll be sharing our recipe for here though.

Items:

Olive oil

Chicken (breast or thigh)

Seasoning for Chicken (use what you want, we used salt and pepper)

Baby Spinach

Minced Garlic

Yellow Onions

Bell Peppers(choose the color based on your own personal preferences)

Shredded Cheese (your choice here, but we use colby jack)

I recommend brining your chicken for at least 4 hours prior to cooking. If you choose to brine then follow this recipe: .25 cup of salt, enough water to cover the chicken completely, 3 tbsp minced garlic, and 1 tbsp olive oil. Mix the ingredients with warm water then submerge the chicken in it.

Step 1: Cut your bell peppers in half. Do so from the top of the stem to the bottom. Cut the stem and white membrane from the pepper, as well as shake out the seeds

Step 2: Place the bell peppers halves on a sheet pan to bake for about 15 minutes at 400 degrees. Ovens vary so the time and temp may need to be adjusted. You want the bell peppers just slightly soft, but not mushy.

Step 3: Drain your chicken if you brined it. Once the chicken is brined heat olive oil in a large skillet till slightly smoking over medium high heat. Place the chicken breasts in the pan and cook each side for about 3 minutes.

Step 4: Remove your chicken breasts from the pan and place on a sheet pan. Sheet pan goes in the oven to bake for about 25 mins or until the internal temp of the chicken reaches 165 degrees. (Cooking time will vary on the size of the breast that you're cooking)

Step 5: Cut your onions. You can dice or slice your onions, it comes down to your preference.

Step 6: In a skillet heat olive oil over medium heat until slightly smoking. Place your minced garlic into the pan and stir. Once the garlic has become fragrant add the onions to the pan and stir. You want the onions to become somewhat translucent in appearance. Now you add the spinach. Spinach wilts rather quickly so don't step away from your stove during this time. Stir the onions, garlic, and spinach up well. I recommend only cooking the spinach for a short while since it still has to go into the oven. Remove the pan from the heat.

Step 7: Once your chicken has cooled it's time to chop it up. You always want to let meat rest before cutting it. This will allow the juices to redistribute. If you cut the meat right away you'll lose a lot of moisture and flavor. I like to chop the chicken up into penny sized pieces.

Step 8: It's time to stuff your peppers. I recommend putting your chicken in first so that the other ingredients insulate it from drying out in the oven. Depending on the size of the pepper you'll probably be able to put 2 oz. or so of chicken in. Now you can fill in the rest of the pepper with your spinach mix. The last ingredient is your choose. Put as much of this as you'd like. I love cheese so I'm always heavy handed with it in my personal cooking.

Step 9: Oven time! Place your stuffed peppers back in the oven on a sheet pan. At this point you're just melting the cheese and warming the chicken back up. This is one of the reasons that I recommend cutting the chicken into relatively smaller pieces. If they are too big you run the risk of getting a dry pepper with too crispy of spinach and burnt cheese. Oven times vary, but 5-8 minutes should be all that is needed.

Step 10: Eat it! We serve our stuffed peppers with sweet potatoes, but the choice is yours.

If you decide to try this recipe on your own let us know. Post a picture on your Instagram and tag us. I'd love to see how your stuffed peppers came out. Remember, the great thing about cooking is that you're the artist. You can try whatever you want and as long as you enjoy it then it's a success.