It’s time to get creative with your peppers and veggies. Not by simply cooking and adding them to a meal, but by stuffing them with delicious ingredients! If you’ve never tried that before, it’s time to up your chef game with stuffed deliciousness. And if you’ve already got some experience in stuffing peppers and vegetables, read on to learn new tips, tricks and recipes that will elevate your culinary skills even further!

Why Stuffed Peppers and Vegetables Make Great Meals

First and foremost, stuffing peppers and vegetables is a sure way to make delicious dishes! But apart from how good these recipes taste, there are a number of other reasons why they’re so great.

Versatility and variety: There are so many ingredient combos that work well for these dishes, you’ll never run out of options. What’s more is that such recipes are easily adaptable so that you can make tweaks to meet the dietary requirements of everyone.

Convenient and creative: Stuffing veggies and peppers also means great opportunities for repurposing leftovers - whether we’re talking about the veggies themselves or the ingredients used to fill them!

Nutritious and delicious: These recipes are also a fantastic way to bring more vegetables to your kitchen repertoire for nutritious reasons! And with more health-conscious eaters on the rise, green cuisine can be a real crowd pleaser!

Quick Tips for Filling

Follow these 4 simple steps to level up your kitchen skills:

Grains: Grains such as rice and quinoa are an ideal part of stuffing that can be used as a filling base to give your meal more of a hearty and comforting texture. Another benefit of such grains is the way they absorb the flavors of oils and cooking liquids. You can enhance the taste of plain rice by adding herbs and spices to the cooking water or by pouring in some broth.

Protein: Add some satisfaction to your meal by including a protein food. This doesn’t have to be ground meat. You can also opt for fish, eggs, tofu, beans or extra vegetables. While there is plenty of protein in meat, there are more than enough meat-free alternatives.

Sauce: There’s no need to let your vegetables dry out after being cooked, or for them to lack that flavorful punch. A wide range of sauces can keep other ingredients moist and rich in taste. Oil-based sauces like pesto or tomato-based ones such as marinara are among the most popular.

Herbs and Spices: You can cut down on the use of salt while bringing extra flavor to a dish by chucking in some fresh herbs and spices.

Stuffed Tomatoes


This Couscous Stuffed Roasted Tomatoes Recipe gives you a flavorful but light dinner or an original style of snack for gatherings. With feta cheese, herbs and couscous inside, you and your guests can enjoy a range of flavors that come together with mint and cilantro to wow your taste buds!

Couscous makes a great stuffing ingredient because of its versatility, texture and ability to soak up the flavors of everything you mix it with! If you’re still in the dark about this traditional North African staple, here’s everything you need to know about couscous.

Stuffed Avocados

Avocado lovers take note: here’s how to use your avocados with style. Fill them with couscous and a blend of tantalizing ingredients, like in this Couscous Avocado Boats Recipe.

This makes a tasty appetizer or side dish that you can serve up on a weekend gathering.

So what else can you do with couscous? With these meal ideas, you’re bound to find something creative, unique and satisfying!

Avocado Tips

  • Buy avocados a few days before you actually plan to use them.

  • If the stem is difficult to remove, this means the avocado isn’t quite ready yet. If they’re too hard, you’ll need them to ripen and soften. You can do this by placing them with a banana or apple inside a brown paper bag and leaving them there for a couple of days.

  • Once ripe, you can keep it refrigerated for 2 or 3 days.

Stuffed Peppers

Of all the veggies you can stuff with combos of textures and flavors, peppers are the most popular. That’s because of their shape, size and firmness which makes them ideal for filling, as well as the fact that they taste good.

This Rice and Turkey Stuffed Peppers Recipe is one example of how to jazz things up, and it gets even more tasty with tomato sauce and mozzarella. There are alternatives to bell peppers for stuffing. Poblanos and Anaheim peppers, in particular, have thick walls that make them suitable options. Anaheim peppers offer a smoky taste, while poblanos tend to have a more earthy flavor, which is why these Rio Bravo Rice-Stuffed Poblanos are so irresistible!

Stuffed Squash Recipes

Stuffed squash gives home chefs the opportunity to make something that stands out. Although similar to stuffed peppers, stuffed squash have their own shape, flavor and color, giving them an air of originality. Plus, the thick, durable walls make it ideal when it comes to holding hearty filling.

Pumpkin: Rice Stuffed Mini Pumpkins with Dry Fruits and Pecans Recipe is a combo of flavors which also include cinnamon, nutmeg raisins and apricots. If it sounds good that’s because it is, but what’s more is that it’s also great on the eye, a dish for you to show off your presentation skills!

Acorn Squash: Another way to impress your guests is with this Stuffed Acorn Squash Recipe that combines with the flavors of sweet potato, diced apple and cranberry! When all that sweetness is cooked up together in one warm and delicious blend, this could become one of your go-to meals.

Zucchini: For a summer snack, opt for zucchini or yellow squash.This Orzo-Stuffed Zucchini Boats Recipe can be made as a snack for guests or as a mean meal. With high quality ingredients and impressive presentation, don’t be surprised if this dish quickly becomes one of your favorites!

Home Chef Tip: You may also want to check out this guide to cooking orzo where you’ll learn what orzo is, how to cook it, and some irresistible orzo recipes. That way, you’ll find out why this ‘pastina’ is so popular and the various styles of recipes it can play a part in!

Stuffed Mushrooms and More

Finally, since we’re talking about stuffed veggies, we have to mention stuffed mushrooms such as those found in this Wild Rice and Sausage Stuffed Mushroom Recipe. Here’s a tasty dish that makes a great start or appetizer, especially with some cheddar and parmesan cheese on top that gently melts when the stuffed mushroom has just been cooked and is still hot.

Here’s one last dish that’s a little different, but still, all about that stuffing. In this Quinoa Swiss Chard Rolls in Tomato Sauce Recipe, you’ll find a vegetarian meal that wraps up warm and tasty textures inside a fresh and leafy coat for a tantalizing meatless wonder!

For more meal inspiration from RiceSelect®, come and check out our cooking tips for home chefs.