Recipe of the month – Stuffed Peppers
Stuffed Peppers with Yoghurt Sauce
By Published: September 25, 2025
- Yield: 15 Servings
- Prep: 60 mins
- Cook: 45 mins
- Ready In: 2 hrs 30 mins
Tamara: Stuffed peppers are a festive dish in Moldova. They are made in the summer or in early autumn, when peppers are plentiful and ripe. Some households love them so much they freeze them, or bottle them in a pasteurised environment, to be enjoyed through the winter. The best and sweetest to use are bell peppers – round shaped with a flat bottom. However, any type of sweet peppers will do. The important thing to know about this dish, and the reason it is considered festive, is you end up with quite a few peppers cooked, and so invite your team to eat, or your friends, or your neighbours. Reheating is awkward: we recommend you have enough people to enjoy them, freshly cooked. The filling can be used to stuff other vegetables, such as little squashes, large red onions or cabbage leaves. It can also be frozen if you make too much. But peppers are the classic things to stuff, and we invite you to enjoy it. This recipe is a vegan version of the traditional methods, which include meats and sour cream. It is, nevertheless, formidable.
Ingredients
- 15 bell pepper large
- 500 g short grain rice
- 250 g red lentils
- 4 onions peeled and chopped
- 4 Carrots peeled and grated
- 1 celery (optional)
- 1/2 green cabbage finely chopped
- 1 bunch fresh parsley finely chopped
- 1 l tomato passata (or 1kg fresh plum tomatoes)
- 50 g tomato paste
- 100 ml favourite cooking oil
- 1/2 tsp chilli flakes (optional)
- salt and pepper to taste
- 50 ml Greek yoghurt vegan
- 1 clove garlic finely chopped
- 1 bunch fresh dill finely chopped
- 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil (optional)
- ground black pepper to taste
Instructions
- Prepare the peppers by cutting off the tops. Carefully, without splitting the peppers, remove any seeds and membranes from the inside. Keep the tops. To keep them from falling over while cooking, cut a small piece off their bottoms so they are flat, and stand up securely in lines.
- Arrange them in one layer in a deep roasting tin, lined with baking parchment.
- Set the oven to preheat at 220⁰C, Gas Mark 8.
- Now the filling. Rinse and blanch the rice and lentils in a large bowl of hot water. This reduces the cooking times and swells the mix.
- While the rice mix is having its hot bath, prepare the vegetables in a large pan. Sweat the onions, then add carrots, celery and cabbage. Mix well and cook for 5 minutes until they soften. Add the tomato puree, half the passata, and the chopped parsley. Cook for another 5 minutes.
- Your filling is ready. Strain the lentil and rice mix, add the half-cooked vegetables (and chilli flakes, if you’re going spicy). Mix and taste. Add enough salt so it feels a touch too salty. During cooking, the juices and grains absorb the salt, and the final taste comes out just right.
- When you are happy with the taste of your filling, stuff your peppers. Use a spoon, and press the stuffing down, so that you do not leave too much space inside. Because the rice was blanched, it will not swell much during cooking. Cover each pepper with its hat.
- Mix the rest of the passata with equal amounts of hot water and pour over the stuffed peppers. Cover your tin with a lid (maybe another tin of the same size, or kitchen foil).
- Place the tin in the middle of your oven and cook for 45 minutes. The peppers turn soft and wrinkly but should stay whole.
- One stuffed paper makes a good serving, alongside potatoes or other side dishes.
- To make the yoghurt sauce, mix the yoghurt, garlic, dill and black pepper.
Serve each stuffed pepper with a generous dollop.
- Cuisine: Mediterrarean
- Course: Entrée
- Skill Level: Moderate
