A quick and easy alternative to stuffed peppers, this slow cooker unstuffed peppers recipe requires no cleaning or chopping of vegetables and all goes together quickly in the slow cooker.

Joe really likes stuffed peppers. For me, they are an unpleasant memory from my childhood. My Mom made stuffed green peppers often when I was growing up and I really disliked them, but I still had to eat them. So they are not something I ever made. I’m mostly a “if I don’t like it, I don’t cook it” kind of person. Honestly, I barely want to cook things I DO like most days, let alone things I don’t! However, I do like all the ingredients in stuffed peppers, just not in that format. When I saw the bag of frozen peppers at Trader Joe’s I had a thought that I could use those to make a quick meal and this unstuffed peppers recipe came together pretty easily after that.

Key Ingredients for Slow Cooker Unstuffed Peppers

Ground Turkey: We prefer ground turkey to other ground meets but you can use whatever you like
Frozen Pepper Strips: Using frozen peppers strips is key to making this an easy meal
Pasta Sauce and Diced Tomatoes: Any brand and any type of diced tomatoes works here
Rice: For serving. Use whatever type of rice you prefer. Since it’s cooked separately you don’t need to worry about the different cooking times for different types of rice.

slow cooker unstuffed peppers ingredients

Note: Make sure to check recipe card for full list of ingredients

Preparation Steps for Slow Cooker Unstuffed Peppers

Brown the ground turkey
Add turkey and all other ingredients except rice to slow cooker
Cook on high for 4 hours
Serve unstuffed peppers over cooked rice

This turned out better than I expected and it was sooo easy. I either cook my rice in a rice cooker or use frozen brown rice from Trader Joe’s if I don’t have time to wait for the rice cooker. Cooking the rice separately eliminates having to use a specific type of rice and makes the timing a lot less complicated.

Substitutions/Additions

You can use ground chicken, beef, pork – whatever you prefer
I really like the Trade Joe’s Melange A Trois Bell Pepper mix. You can use any frozen peppers but I recommend you use strips not diced.
Use any type of diced tomatoes or leave them out if you don’t like them
Use any type of rice you like

Time Breakdown

Total Time	4.25 hours
Hands ON time	15 minutes
Hands OFF time	4 hours

BEST FOR:

Days when you have time to prep and throw the ingredients in a slow cooker earlier in the day, and let it cook for 4 hours. This is such an easy recipe with the only actual prep browning the ground meat. No chopping!

My Ratings

Taste
Effort
Nutrition
Overall

SUMMARY:

This is a pretty delicious recipe. Joe even said he likes it better than actual stuffed peppers. Wow! It’s pretty healthy too since it doesn’t use any highly processed foods, especially if you use brown rice. The best part is that it’s so quick and easy to pull together. It’s now part of my regular meal rotation

Serve with

I like to serve this with a salad