When I was a kid, my dad made dinner very rarely and when he did there were three options — mac and cheese, sausage on the grill, or stuffed peppers. Stuffed peppers came along infrequently enough that they felt like a novelty to me and so I loved them and look back on them fondly as a favorite childhood food.
(Though I recognize that stuffed peppers are not really a classic “childhood food” for most!) But to me, they mean comfort. And soup also means comfort. And that’s precisely why the two had to meet in this Stuffed Pepper Soup.
If you have leftover white rice, this is a great place to use it. You’ll need two cups. You’ll also need a pound of ground beef, a couple of bell peppers, an onion, some garlic, beef broth, and tomato sauce and diced tomatoes. Not a terribly long ingredient list and full of some nice, nourishing stuff.
I have more good news for you — this only takes 30 minutes to throw together. Brown up the beef and the onion, stir in the rest of the ingredients (save for the rice) and let it simmer for just fifteen minutes. You don’t need all day to bring these flavors together. The rice goes in at the end so it doesn’t absorb too much liquid and after five minutes to heat up in the pot, you’re good to go!
This has all the same flavors I remember and love from Stuffed Bell Peppers — that mellowed bitterness from the pepper, the hearty beef, chewy rice, and sweet tomato… it’s comfort in a bowl if I’ve ever seen it!
