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Jack-o'-Lantern Stuffed Peppers

Orange bell peppers carved with faces and stuffed with Impossible meat, Spanish rice, Ro-Tel, jalapeños and fire-roasted green chiles.

Cook
15 min pre-roast + 15 min stuffed
Serves
6 peppers
Jump to the recipe
Six roasted orange bell peppers with carved jack-o'-lantern faces and their stems set back on as lids, in a baking pan

Halloween dinner. Orange bell peppers look enough like little pumpkins that carving faces into them was the obvious move, and the filling shows through the eyes and mouth once they’re stuffed.

The filling is a quick skillet job: Impossible meat with onion and plenty of garlic, taco seasoning, Ro-Tel, jalapeños, fire-roasted green chiles and two pouches of ready-to-eat Spanish rice, with tons of shredded cheese stirred in and piled on top. The peppers get a 15-minute head start in the oven.

Six orange bell peppers on a green cutting board, two with jack-o'-lantern faces already carved
Six orange peppers, a couple already carved.
Close-up of an orange bell pepper with triangle eyes and a jagged smile cut into it
Six carved peppers in a baking pan, glossy with oil, one being set in place by hand
Oiled and ready for the pre-roast.
Hollowed-out carved peppers standing in a baking pan after the pre-roast
A skillet of Impossible meat, Spanish rice, diced tomatoes and green chiles
The filling.
Six peppers packed with the rice and Impossible meat filling, in a baking pan
Packed full. Cheese on top, then 10 minutes lids off and 5 with them on.
Two roasted stuffed peppers with lids on and the filling showing through the carved faces
Out of the oven.

Make it

Makes 6 peppers

Ingredients

The peppers

The filling

To finish

  1. Heat the oven to 370°F.
  2. Cut the tops off the peppers and keep them for lids. Pull out the seeds and ribs, then carve a jack-o'-lantern face into the side of each pepper. Trim a thin slice off the bottom of each one so it stands up flat in the pan.
  3. Coat the peppers inside and out with oil or avocado oil, stand them up in a baking pan, and pre-roast for 15 minutes.
  4. Meanwhile, cook the onion and garlic in a large skillet until fragrant.
  5. Add the Impossible meat, break it up, and cook it through. Season generously with taco seasoning.
  6. Stir in the Ro-Tel, the jalapeños, the green chiles and the rice, then mix in 1 to 1½ cups of the shredded cheese.
  7. Pack the filling into the pre-roasted peppers and cover the tops with more shredded cheese.
  8. Roast with the lids off for 10 minutes.
  9. Set the lids on and roast 5 minutes more.
  10. Serve topped with sour cream, and some hot sauce if you like.

Good to know

  • Pro tip: trim a thin slice off the bottom of each pepper so it stands up in the pan.
  • This makes more filling than six peppers need, easily enough for twelve. The extra is also delicious rolled in tortillas as burritos.