Stuffed Mini Peppers with Quinoa
Sweet mini peppers filled with herbed quinoa, cranberries, and toasted pecans—colorful and hearty
- 16mini sweet peppers(halved lengthwise, seeds removed)
- 1 cupquinoa(cooked and cooled)
- 0.25 cupdried cranberries(chopped)
- 0.25 cuppecans(toasted and chopped)
- 2 tbspfresh parsley(chopped)
- 1 tbspfresh sage(minced)
- 2 tbspolive oil(divided)
- 1 tbspbalsamic vinegar
- 0.5 tspsalt
- 0.25 tspblack pepper
Quinoa filling can be made up to 2 days ahead. Fill peppers up to 4 hours before baking. Bake just before serving.
- 1Preheat oven to 400°F
- 2Halve mini peppers lengthwise and remove seeds
- 3Toss pepper halves with 1 tbsp olive oil and arrange cut-side up on baking sheet
- 4Mix cooked quinoa with cranberries, pecans, parsley, sage, remaining olive oil, balsamic, salt, and pepper
- 5Fill each pepper half generously with quinoa mixture
- 6Bake 15-20 minutes until peppers are tender and filling is lightly golden
- 7Serve warm or at room temperature
Choose peppers that sit flat for easier stuffing. Toast pecans in dry skillet for deeper flavor. Can substitute walnuts for pecans.
Stuffed peppers appear in culinary traditions across the Mediterranean and Latin America simultaneously, reflecting the pepper's path from its Mesoamerican origin through global distribution following European contact with the Americas. Bell peppers (Capsicum annuum) are native to Central and South America and were cultivated by Indigenous peoples for thousands of years before Spanish colonization spread them globally from the 16th century onward. In Mediterranean cooking, dolmas (stuffed grape leaves or vegetables) date to the Ottoman Empire and earlier; in Turkish and Greek cooking, stuffed peppers (biber dolması) have been prepared since at least the 18th century. In Mexican cooking, chiles rellenos — roasted chiles stuffed with cheese or meat and fried — have been prepared since at least the colonial period. Quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa), the grain used in this modern version, is native to the Andean highlands of what is now Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador, where it has been cultivated for at least 5,000 years by the Inca and their predecessors. The Inca called quinoa chisaya mama (mother of all grains) and considered it a sacred crop. Quinoa arrived in American health food stores in the 1980s and entered mainstream American grocery markets in the late 2000s, when its complete protein profile attracted the attention of health-conscious consumers.