Chicken Stuffed Peppers

How to Make Stuffed Bell Peppers

This is a brief overview of how to make this delicious dinner recipe. For the full recipe with all of the ingredients and measurements, please see the recipe card at the bottom of the post.

1. Prepare the peppers. For this recipe we are slicing the peppers in half, and then carefully cutting out the seed core and the ribbing. The goal here is to leave the rest of the pepper in tact for filling, so use a sharp knife and careful cutting skills when taking out that seed pod.
2. Precook the bell peppers. There are a few ways to do this. In this recipe, we are putting them in the microwave with a little oil first. Read below to learn about other methods.
3. Make the filling. While the peppers are precooking, mix together the chicken, spaghetti sauce, cream cheese, spices, and cheeses.
4. Fill the peppers. Working carefully with the hot peppers, place them in the baking dish and distribute the filling evenly amongst them. Top with the remaining cheese.
5. Bake and enjoy the stuffed peppers.

Precooking Bell Peppers

One of the ways to speed up a bell pepper recipe is to pre cook the peppers. Just a little bit of time in the microwave or oven will cut off a lot of time once they are filled and back in the oven. In fact, we can cut the cooking time by about half and only have them in the oven for 25 minutes.

While this recipe uses the microwave to precook the peppers, you can also do it in the oven.

1. Preheat your oven to 450 degrees.
2. While the oven is preheating, prepare the peppers.
3. Place the peppers on rimmed baking sheet lined with parchment paper.
4. Bake the peppers for 10 minutes or until they are easy to pierce with a fork.
5. Lower the oven temperature and allow it to come to 350 while you finish preparing the peppers.

Low Carb Stuffed Pepper Filling

I have had so many readers ask me for more low carb recipes. One of my favorite dinners to make for my family (and for yours!) is stuffed peppers. I have so many different varieties that are delicious (I even have a Stuffed Pepper Casserole), but the bad news is they all have a grain in them.

Bound and determined to make a stuffed pepper recipe that was low carb friendly, I made this amazing filling. It contains shredded chicken, cream cheese, spaghetti sauce, cheese, herbs, and spices to give it a lot of flavor. All of these ingredients are great for a low carb diet.

The only ingredient we need to watch out for is the spaghetti sauce, so read on.

Spaghetti Sauce for Chicken Stuffed Peppers

If you are on a low carb diet, the one ingredient in these stuffed peppers with chicken that you need to pay attention to is the spaghetti sauce. It brings a lot of the flavor to this recipe, but if you aren’t careful, it can also bring a lot of carbs. You want to either buy a brand that contains few processed ingredients and is low carb, or you want to make your own.

I love my homemade spaghetti sauce recipe for it’s flavor, but also because you can control the ingredients. In it’s current form, it contains 7 grams of carbs per cup of sauce. So that would be about 1 gram of carbs per serving of these stuffed peppers. If that is more than you want, you can cut the 2 teaspoons of sugar from the recipe or replace it with 2 finely grated carrots that you put in during step 2.

This recipe will make more sauce than you need for this recipe, but it freezes very well.

Keeping Shredded Chicken on Hand

While you can easily make shredded chicken on the stovetop or in the instant pot, I find that it is easiest to just keep shredded chicken in my freezer. It thaws very quickly and makes meals like this a snap.

Freezing Cooked Chicken

Freezing cooked chicken to keep on hand is the perfect short cut for dinners during a busy weeknight! Learn how to freeze cooked chicken with these simple easy steps.

view recipe

Make Ahead

These stuffed peppers can be made up to 24 hours ahead. Follow the recipe up to the point of putting them in the oven. Instead, cover them and place them in the refrigerator.

When ready to bake, place the stuffed peppers in the preheated oven and bake for 25 to 30 minutes.

Freezing Stuffed Peppers

If you don’t need all six stuffed peppers, these are great to freeze for a quick meal in the future.

1. Make the recipe up to the point of putting them in the oven.
2. Flash freeze the peppers. Place them on a plate or a rimmed baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Freeze for 2 to 4 hours.
3. Transfer the peppers to an air tight container and store in the freezer for up to 3 months. Alternatively, vacuum seal the peppers (individually) to last in the freezer for closer to 6 months.
4. When ready to eat, transfer from the freezer to a baking dish. Cover and bake for 35 minutes at 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Uncover and bake for 15 more minutes.

What to Serve with Stuffed Peppers

There are so many great side dishes to make with this recipe that will keep the dinner low carb friendly. Here are some of my favorite choices.

• Mediterranean Salad comes together very quickly with a small handful of ingredients.
• Air Fryer Broccoli is a quick and healthy side dish that even my picky eaters love.
• Mashed Cauliflower is something I could eat daily. It is so easy to make and absolutely delicious.

If you make these stuffed chicken peppers or any of my other recipes, please leave me a comment and let me know what you think. I love hearing from you.