5-Ingredient Mexican Quinoa Stuffed Peppers — The Pantry Rules Recipe That Started It All

Christmas Day at our apartment. Brayden is one hundred and seventeen weeks old. The Bryants flew in Saturday for the two-day stay. Mama hosted Christmas Eve at her house in Sapulpa. Christmas Day was at our apartment in Tulsa. Twelve people total — us three, Carol and Dustin’s dad, Mama, Cody, Aunt Linda and Roy, Aunt Patty and Bobby (Hannah and Hayden away with their college-roommates), Roy Calloway who rode up with Aunt Linda and Roy.

This Sunday’s post is also the first in a small new series I am starting in 2024 — the Pantry Rules series, which is a small budget-cooking initiative focused on recipes that use five-or-fewer ingredients and produce a complete meal for under five dollars. The series is partly motivated by the new-baby budget-planning (a second child changes the household’s monthly food-spend), partly by an honest acknowledgment that not every recipe on the blog has to be elaborate, and partly by my own curiosity about whether a small constraint-driven cooking series would expand my approach to recipe-development.

The 5-ingredient Mexican quinoa stuffed peppers are the series-opening recipe. The ingredients are: bell peppers (4, large), quinoa (1 cup, cooked yields 3 cups), black beans (1 can drained), salsa (1 cup), shredded cheese (1 cup). Cooked quinoa is mixed with rinsed black beans and salsa. The mixture is stuffed into halved-and-hollowed bell peppers. The stuffed peppers are baked at three-seventy-five for thirty minutes, topped with cheese, finished for an additional five minutes under the broiler.

The total recipe cost is about $4.65 (peppers $2, quinoa $0.85, beans $0.95, salsa $0.75, cheese $0.10 from a bulk-bag). The recipe feeds four. The cost-per-serving is $1.16.

5-Ingredient Mexican Quinoa Stuffed Peppers

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 35 minutes | Total Time: 45 minutes | Servings: 4

Ingredients

• 4 large bell peppers (any color), tops cut off and seeds removed
• 1 cup quinoa, rinsed
• 1 can (15 oz) black beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 can (15 oz) fire-roasted diced tomatoes, undrained
• 1 cup shredded Mexican blend cheese, divided

Instructions

1. Preheat oven. Heat oven to 375°F. Lightly grease a baking dish large enough to hold all four peppers upright.
2. Cook the quinoa. Combine quinoa with 2 cups water in a medium saucepan. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer for 15 minutes until water is absorbed. Fluff with a fork.
3. Make the filling. In a large bowl, stir together the cooked quinoa, black beans, fire-roasted tomatoes (with their juices), and 3/4 cup of the shredded cheese. Mix until well combined.
4. Fill the peppers. Stand the peppers upright in the prepared baking dish. Spoon the quinoa filling evenly into each pepper, pressing down gently to pack the filling in. Top each with the remaining 1/4 cup cheese.
5. Bake. Cover the dish loosely with foil and bake for 25 minutes. Remove the foil and bake an additional 10 minutes, until the peppers are tender and the cheese is melted and lightly golden.
6. Rest and serve. Let the peppers rest for 5 minutes before serving. Serve as-is or with a dollop of sour cream or a squeeze of lime if you have it on hand.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 340 | Protein: 17g | Fat: 9g | Carbs: 48g | Fiber: 9g | Sodium: 520mg