Stuffed Sweet Peppers With Tuna, Bulgur and Herbs
- Total Time
- 45 minutes
- Rating
- Comments
- Read comments
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Ingredients
- 2pounds sweet small bell peppers, cored (about 24)
- 6tablespoons olive oil, more as needed
- 1¼teaspoons fine sea salt, more as needed
- 1cup medium or coarse bulgur
- 1tablespoon tomato paste
- 1teaspoon ground cumin
- 2cups chicken or vegetable stock or water
- ½cup diced celery
- ½cup diced onion
- ½cup diced green bell pepper
- 1medium or 2 small jalapeños, seeded and minced
- 2cloves garlic, minced
- 2chopped anchovy filets (optional)
- Black pepper, to taste
- 1(5- to 7-ounce) jar of tuna packed in olive oil, drained
- 2tablespoons mayonnaise or plain Greek-style yogurt
- 2tablespoons lemon juice, more to taste
- ⅓cup chopped cilantro
- ⅓cup chopped fresh parsley, mint or dill (or a combination), more for garnish
- 2½tablespoons capers
Nutritional analysis per serving (6 servings)
352 calories; 18 grams fat; 3 grams saturated fat; 0 grams trans fat; 11 grams monounsaturated fat; 3 grams polyunsaturated fat; 34 grams carbohydrates; 7 grams dietary fiber; 9 grams sugars; 16 grams protein; 832 milligrams sodium
Note: The information shown is Edamam’s estimate based on available ingredients and preparation. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.
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Preparation
- Step 1
Heat oven to 400 degrees. On a rimmed baking sheet, toss peppers with 1½ tablespoons oil and ¼ teaspoon salt. Roast, stirring once or twice, until peppers are tender, 15 to 22 minutes. Set aside to cool.
- Step 2
Meanwhile, in a medium pot, heat 1 tablespoon oil over medium heat. Add bulgur and toast, stirring, until it smells nutty, about 3 minutes. Add tomato paste, cumin and 1 teaspoon salt, and sauté until tomato paste darkens, 1 to 2 minutes. Pour in stock or water and bring to a boil. Lower heat and simmer until bulgur is soft all the way through, 15 to 20 minutes. Drain off any remaining liquid and set aside to cool.
- Step 3
Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add 1 tablespoon oil and heat until shimmering. Add celery and sauté until just beginning to soften, about 3 minutes. Add onion, green bell pepper, jalapeño, garlic and anchovies (if using). Sauté until vegetables are just tender but not soft (a little texture is welcome), 4 to 6 minutes. If mixture begins to stick to the bottom of the pan, add a tablespoon or two of water. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Set aside to cool.
- Step 4
Put tuna in a large bowl and use a fork to break into chunks. Add remaining 2½ tablespoons oil, mayonnaise (or yogurt) and lemon juice and mash until tuna is broken into small flakes. Mix in onion-celery mixture, bulgur, herbs and capers and stir well. Taste and add more salt, pepper and/or lemon juice as needed.
- Step 5
Make a slit lengthwise down each pepper to open it up. Stuff the bulgur mixture into the open peppers, then pinch the peppers so that the stuffing holds the two sides together. (It's O.K. if the peppers aren't completely closed.) Arrange on a platter, sprinkle with lemon juice and garnish with herbs. Serve immediately or at room temperature.
Private Notes
Comments
The recipe calls for peppers "cored". Yet your picture shows them with their tops on and you tell us to "make a slit" after they are cooked. So how are we supposed to core them? Not from the top (which you show still attached). Not from the side (which you tell us to slit after cooking). So where? From the tip? That sounds impractical.
I've done this twice for cocktail parties, once with bulgur and once without. The peppers without bulgur - with just a packing of what is essentially a tuna salad mixture - were more popular. Less mush. It's essential to mince the celery, garlic and anchovies very fine and use the smallest capers. A dash of Tabasco helps. Tuna must be thoroughly drained. Keep stems on for handling and remove core and seeds with index finger. Don't overstuff. Chill.
This recipe looks fantastic. However, the difficulty with roasted chilis is coring, while keeping the stem intact. The instructions call for cored peppers, but the stem is intact in the pic. That is virtually impossible on a pepper this small. It would be helpful to know at what point the peppers are supposed to be cored and how to core them without losing the stem. I think the simple solution would be to simply roast them whole and then eat around the core. Could you clarify, please?
Had only large peppers and this looked a little complicated, so I took @Charles advice and made tuna salad for the filling based on ingredients in the recipe: tuna packed in olive oil, chopped garlic, some chopped quick-pickled onion, chopped capers, chopped celery, mayo, and some chopped caper brine instead of lemon juice. Did the oven roasting without coring, etc first. Then slit, removed the core, and drained the inside of the peppers. Because larger peppers, they took longer to get to the roasted point I wanted them at (as browned and collapsed as you would for peeled roasted peppers.). Turned them every 5 min in oven. Probably need 1-2 filled red peppers per person for a main dish. And I’m guessing one can of tuna for every 2-3 peppers. Not sure bc I only filled one for dinner for one tonight, and have extra tuna and peppers for other meals. Delicious! Much better than traditional stuffed green bell peppers I had as a kid.
The filling is good in 'classic' stuffed bell peppers (a la Pepin). Pescatarian, too.
To make this a vegetarian appetizer I substituted cooked small black lentils for the tuna. Instead of lemon juice, I use two preserved lemons. No need for the mayonnaise when using lentils. The taste is marvelous, and it looks very impressive on a platter. As for the stuffing of the peppers, do whatever works. It is a bit messy. The small peppers don't have that much in the way of seeds to core, in any case.
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