Name: Mexican Stuffed Peppers - Three Ways {Vegan, Vegetarian, and Omnivore}
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 40 min
Total time: 55 min
Ingredients: 6 peppers ({See Recipe Notes}); 1 cup cooked rice; 2 cups cooked black beans; 2 cups diced tomatoes ({Fresh or canned. If using canned, drain them first.}); 1 tsp garlic powder; 1-2 tablespoons chipotles in adobe sauce; 1 1/3 cups Mother Mix + 2 cups water ({See Recipe Notes for link}); 1 cup almond flour ({also known as super-fine almond meal, or ground blanched skinless almonds}); 2 cups water; 4 tablespoons tapioca starch; 2 tablespoons, plus 2 teaspoons nutritional yeast nutritional yeast; 1 teaspoon salt; 1/3 cup chorizo sausage meat, per carnivore; 2 tablespoons cheese/cheeze of choice, per each pepper; sour cream; cilantro

This oooey-gooey, make’em anyway you want’em Mexican Stuffed Peppers recipe features a super simple mix of rice, black beans, and tomatoes all tied together with a mildly spicy chipotle cheese sauce, made from the Mother Mix. If you’re not on to the Mother Mix, it’s a simple DIY pantry staple made from almond flour, nutritional yeast, tapioca flour, and salt. If you don’t want to make the mix, you can just use the equivalent ingredients – it’s all detailed in the recipe.

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This recipe is our most flexible entree to date — you can make these Mexican Stuffed Peppers 100% plant-based, 100% vegetarian, or 100% omni-friendly, or of course you can make all three versions, and the recipe is simple enough that it’s very little extra work to do so.

Beyond being super flexible in terms of diet types, these stuffed peppers are easy to make ahead, taste even better reheated, and yes you can freeze them!

TL;DR – SUMMARY OF MAKING MEXICAN STUFFED PEPPERS

Graphic showing the 8 overall steps for making Mexican Stuffed Peppers. First, you halve the peppers and remove the seeds. Second, you make the Chipotle Cheese Sauce, either the vegan version, the dairy version, or both. Third, you prepare the base by combining cooked rice, tomatoes, and cooked black beans. The fourth step is optional. You cook any meat, such as chorizo sausage, that you would like in your stuffed peppers. The fifth step is to combine the base, the cheese sauce, and optionally, the meat. The sixth step is to stuff the peppers. The seventh step is to bake the peppers. The eighth step is to top the peppers with cheese and then finish baking for about 10 minutes.

Mexican Stuffed Peppers, with rice, beans, chorizo, and chipotle cheese sauce, topped with cheese and sour cream. All on a white plate. — Mexican Stuffed Peppers – Meat-eaters Version

Three chipotle cheese stuffed green peppers, with rice, beans, and chipotle cheese sauce, topped with cheese and sour cream, and cilantro. All on a light blue plate, sitting on the countertop. — Mexican Stuffed Peppers – Vegan Version

Preparing the Peppers

First, get your peppers cleaned and ready. Slice them in half from top to bottom. Leaving the stem on is optional. Deseed the peppers and set aside.

USE DIFFERENT COLOURED PEPPERS TO EASILY TRACK VERSIONS

If you’re making multiple versions, use different coloured peppers to help keep track of which version is which. I typically use green peppers for the vegan version, yellow or orange peppers for the vegetarian, and red ones for the meat-eaters version. The green ones in the photos are Poblano peppers, but any green pepper would do.

Red, green, and orange peppers in a black bowl. Use different coloured peppers to keep track of which version of Chipotle Cheese Stuffed Peppers you are making.

If you’re making a version for vegetarians or vegetarians and omnivores, make our simple cheese sauce, adding the chipotle pepper to it.

If you’re making a version for vegans, or a group that includes vegans, make the Mother Mix, adding the chipotle pepper to it.

If you want to add chorizo or other meat to all or some of the peppers, fry it up now and set it aside.

Once this is done, you just need to create the base, combining together the rice, beans, tomatoes, and spices. Combine this together with the chipotle cheese sauce. Add meat as desired.

Now, it’s time to stuff the peppers. Peppers are obviously not uniform sizes, but assume after 1/2 cup of filling per pepper, as a starting point. If you have more sauce than peppers, you can keep it refrigerated for a day or two.

Top down view of Mexican Stuffed Peppers in a white baking dish, before topping with cheese and baking.

Optionally, at this point, you can pop the stuffed peppers in the fridge and bake them later in the day. When you are ready, bake the peppers for about 30-40 minutes until the pepper is soft. Remove them from the oven momentarily and then top with your choice of dairy-based or vegan cheese. Return them to the oven for about 5 to 10 more minutes, until the top layer of cheese is melted.

Make Ahead Tip: Freeze the Prepared Peppers

Another option is to bake the peppers without the final cheese topping. Then you freeze them and when you are ready to eat, defrost them, heat them in a 250F oven for about 20 minutes until hot, and then add the final cheese topping.

Topdown view of Mexican Stuffed Peppers, green peppers with vegan cheese, orange peppers are vegetarian, and red peppers have meat. — Mexican Stuffed Peppers: Three Ways – Vegan, Vegetarian, and Meat-Eaters

Etiquette Note

I wanted to display all of the peppers on a single plate for the photograph. You’ll want to check with your crew, whether it’s OK to serve everything from a single dish.

Making Mexican Stuffed Peppers for Mixed Groups of Vegans, Vegetarians, and Meat-Eaters

This recipe has easy options to accommodate for different diets and there’s a lot of common ground to the variations. Along with the peppers themselves, all variations have a trio of rice, black beans, and tomatoes. The filling is tied together with an easy chipotle cheese sauce. You can make this sauce vegan, using the Mother Mix recipe as the base. Or you can make it vegetarian, using our simple cheese sauce recipe. For the omnivores, add meat to the mixture, and top with dairy cheese. (Yes, dairy cheese and Mother Mix cheese sauce taste good together! )

Other Recipes for Mixed Groups

Looking for some other mains to feed mixed eaters? How about:

All Recipes that Use the Mother Mix

The Mother Mix is your shortcut to making a wide variety of creamy or cheesy plant-based recipes. Use it on its own to make a simple dairy-free or vegan cream sauce or as a base for a dip. The Mother Mix is an all-natural, gluten-free dry mix that you can make in minutes and then store in your pantry so it’s ready when you are to make some delicious comfort food.

Here’s an alphabetical list of all the recipes that you can make with the Mother Mix. Some of the recipes are on the site, while others are available in our free ebook.

Acorn Squash Mac and Cheese (Dairy-Free, Vegan) – in free ebook.
Broccoli Cheese Soup (Dairy-Free, Vegan)
Sauced-Up Roasted Cauliflower (Dairy-Free, Vegan)
Crazy Easy Vegan Queso (Dairy-Free, Vegan)
Corn Chowder (Dairy-Free, Vegan) – in free ebook.
Cream of Mushroom Soup (Dairy-Free, Vegan) – in free ebook.
Dairy-Free Green Bean Casserole
French Onion Dip (Dairy-Free, Vegan) – in free ebook.
Green Pasta Sauce (Vegan, Vegetarian, and Meat versions)
Hot Spinach Dip (Dairy-Free, Vegan)
Mexican Corn Chip Casserole (Vegan with jackfruit, or with Chicken)
Mexican Stuffed Peppers (Vegan, Vegetarian, and Meat versions)
Mushroom Tetrazzini (Dairy-Free, Vegan) – in free ebook.
Refried Bean Quesadillas (Dairy-Free, Vegan) – in free ebook.
Savoury Vegan Cheesecake (Dairy-Free, Vegan)
Scalloped Potatoes (Dairy-Free, Vegan)
Veggie Pot Pie (Dairy-Free, Vegan)
Zucchini Fritters (Vegan)

A colourful array of stuffed peppers, green, yellow, and red, topped with cheese, sour cream, and cilantro. From the recipe: Mexican Stuffed Pepper Three Ways - Vegan, Vegetarian, Omnivore

Print Recipe

Mexican Stuffed Peppers – Three Ways {Vegan, Vegetarian, and Omnivore}

These Mexican Stuffed Peppers are easy to customize for vegan, vegetarian, and omnivore eaters. A simple base of black beans, rice, and tomatoes is combined with either vegan chipotle cheese sauce or a dairy version (see Recipe Notes). Optionally, for the meat eaters, add in some spicy chorizo. Uses the Mother Mix.

Prep Time15 mins

Cook Time40 mins

Total Time55 mins

Course: Main Course

Cuisine: American, Mexican, Spanish

Keyword: best stuffed peppers, chipotle cheese recipe, chipotle cheese stuffed peppers vegan, chipotle cheese stuffed peppers vegetarian, chipotle cheese stuffed peppers with meat, chipotle cheese stuffed peppers with rice, easy stuffed peppers, chipotle cheese sauce, vegan chipotle cheese sauce, easy weeknight dinner, stuffed chili pepper, stuffed peppers plant-based, stuffed peppers vegan, stuffed peppers vegetarian, stuffed peppers with chorizo, stuffed peppers with meat, stuffed peppers with rice, the mother mix, vegan stuffed peppers, vegetarian stuffed pepper

Servings: 1/2 peppers

Calories: 134kcal

Author: sylvia

Ingredients

6 peppers {See Recipe Notes}
1 cup cooked rice
2 cups cooked black beans
2 cups diced tomatoes {Fresh or canned. If using canned, drain them first.}
1 tsp garlic powder
1-2 tablespoons chipotles in adobe sauce
1 1/3 cups Mother Mix + 2 cups water {See Recipe Notes for link}

Optionally, if you do not have Mother Mix

1 cup almond flour {also known as super-fine almond meal, or ground blanched skinless almonds}
2 cups water
4 tablespoons tapioca starch
2 tablespoons, plus 2 teaspoons nutritional yeast nutritional yeast
1 teaspoon salt

Optionally, if you want to make with dairy-based chipotle cheese sauce, see Recipe Notes (it’s easy!)

If making omnivore version

1/3 cup chorizo sausage meat, per carnivore

For topping

2 tablespoons cheese/cheeze of choice, per each pepper
sour cream
cilantro

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 350F.
Slice the peppers in half from stem to bottom. Remove the seeds and lay the peppers cut side up on a baking sheet or pan.
Make the base mixture by combining the rice, black beans, tomatoes, and garlic powder in a large bowl.
See the Recipe notes if you want to make this using my dairy-based cheese sauce.
Otherwise, make the chipotle cheese sauce, by combining either the Mother Mix plus water and chipotles OR the individual cheese sauce ingredients plus chipotles in the blender.
Blend on high for one minute.
Transfer to a medium saucepan and cook and stir over medium heat until cheese sauce is thick and stretchy, 6-7 minutes.
Stir the chipotle cheese sauce into the base mixture.

If making the omnivore version:

Pan fry the sausage meat, breaking up any large chunks. Drain off the excess oil.
If you want all of the peppers to have meat, then just add the meat to the cheese/bean/tomato mixture and then stuff the peppers.
If you want to make some stuffed peppers omni-friendly and some not, then separate out about about 1/2 cup of base mixture per 1/3rd cup meat.

For all versions:

Spoon the mixture into the peppers so it’s level with the edge of the pepper.
Cook at 350F for 30-40 minutes, until the pepper is starting to get soft.
Remove from oven and top each pepper with about 2 tablespoons of cheese.
Return to oven until cheese is melted, 5-10 minutes.
Serve with a big dollop of {vegan} sour cream, and garnish with cilantro if desired.

Notes

Pepper Quantity

Obviously, peppers are not all uniform in size. For this recipe, I am allowing about 1/2 cup of filling per 1/2 pepper. Your mileage may vary. If you end up having filling left over, you can freeze it until you have more peppers.

Choosing Peppers

Typically, I just use bell peppers for this recipe, but if you like Poblano peppers this make another good option. Poblano peppers, also known as Ancho peppers, have a little bit of heat to them, so keep that in mind if you are choosing to add more spices to the stuffing mix.

Tip for Feeding Mixed Groups

I usually buy 3 different coloured peppers. I use the green peppers for the vegan version, orange or yellow for vegetarian, and red for the version with meat in it.

Option to Use Dairy-Based Chipotle Cheese Sauce

If you are vegetarian or omnivore, you can swap out the Mother Mix cheese sauce with dairy-based cheese sauce. Follow the Simple Cheese Sauce recipe, but before you add the milk to the pot, first blend the milk with the chipotle peppers, and then stir it into the flour/butter mixture.

Storage, Reheating, and Freezing

You can make these a couple of hours ahead of time, either up to the point of baking them, or up to the point where you are about to add the final cheese/cheeze topping. Refrigerate them until you are ready to do the final cooking.

These are really good reheated. I actually like them better the next day as the pepper gets really nice and soft.

You can freeze the cooked versions. Ideally freeze them without the final cheese topping, defrost them, heat them in a 250F oven for about 20 minutes until hot, and then add the final cheese topping.

About the Mother Mix

The Mother Mix is a simple DIY dry mix that gives you a jumpstart on a number of recipes on this site. It’s vegan and gluten-free and made from all-natural ingredients. You can find the recipe for this awesome pantry staple here.

Amp it Up a Notch

I purposely made this recipe super simple so that it would be fairly fast to make if you are making all three variations. If you aren’t in a hurry, you could use fresh garlic instead of dried, fry up some onions to go into the mix, and/or add in other vegetables like corn or roasted red peppers. If you are vegan/vegetarian but want it be more meaty, you could add in some veggie ground round, mock sausage, or TVP (aka soy mince.)

Nutritional Information

Nutrition information is an estimate based on the vegan version of the recipe, without cheese topping or garnishes.

Nutrition

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Mexican Stuffed Peppers for Vegans, Vegetarians, Meat-eaters