These delicious vegan stuffed mini-peppers are a variation of a dish I sometimes make when it’s not Passover using regular size yellow bell peppers, couscous and vegan pesto. For Passover, I replaced the couscous with quinoa. Happily raw pine nuts aren’t kitniyot, so if you don’t eat kitniyot during Passover, you can use these in the pesto. The rich flavor of the pine nuts replaces the cheese in pesto very nicely!
Prepare the Peppers
First prepare your peppers, about 35 minis for the amount of pesto in the recipe. Wash them, rub the outside lightly with oil and place them on a baking sheet. Roast at 350 degrees until they are softened but still holding their shape.Usually you’ll see a spot or two starting to brown.
Remove them from the oven and allow to cool. With a small, serrated knife, slice each one “from stem to stern” on one side — don’t cut through the back side. No need to de-seed. Just place back on the tray until you’re ready for them.
Quinoa
Cook quinoa as you usually do. I used about two TB of extra virgin olive oil, 2 cups dried quinoa, 1-1/2 tsp. salt and 4 cups of water and cooked it in a rice cooker until it was done. Set aside.
Make the vegan pesto according to the recipe here: https://vegetatingwithleslie.org/?p=1428. Mix this entire amount of pesto with the quinoa you cooked and set aside.
Marinara
You have several options for the sauce. You can use my Matboukha recipe (Moroccan salsa), or you can use some reduced leftover tomato and red bell pepper soup (as I think I did for the picture of my regular couscous-stuffed peppers). Because I had a lot to do for Passover, I took the easy path and used some kosher for Passover bottled marinara.
Assembling your peppers
Using a clean pan, spread the marinara thinly across the whole bottom of the pan. Take a pepper, drain any liquid that collected in it, fill it with a teaspoon (a “table” teaspoon). Place in the pan on top of the sauce. Repeat this process until all the peppers are used.
All the parts of this dish are cooked, so you really don’t need to reheat them for use in a meal unless you choose to do that. I’m taking them to a seder tonight where there will be LOTS of people and lots of commotion, so we’ll just serve a couple of big trays of them as they are. They are for the vegans in the crowd, but I’m pretty sure most of the folks there will want to have at least one with their meal, so I made a lot.
And now I’d better get moving with the vegan matzah ball soup before the chag!
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Sounds delicious! Can’t wait to try these…. thanks for sharing! So colorful too!
Hope you enjoy, Dorothy!
YUM!
🙂 – that pesto is amazing. I add it to lots of things or just slather it over some bread (when it’s not Passover).
Can these be made ahead and frozen? If so, how do you get them ready to serve?
Hi Lisa – I’m sorry for the long delay in responding to your question. I’m not able to get to my websites very much recently. Yes, they can definitely be made ahead and frozen. You can freeze them in two ways — prepare each part (roast the peppers, make the pesto) and put them into separate containers in the freezer. Then defrost both overnight in the fridge when you’re ready to make up the dish, and the next day when they are fully defrosted, fill the peppers and set aside. Alternatively you can fill the peppers before freezing and wrap them individually and put into a container for the freezer or arrange them all in rows next to each other on a tray, seal, and put in the freezer. That last may be difficult to fit in the freezer, but if it works, great — then there will be nothing to do when you take them out except pour tomato sauce over them. Personally, I think I’d rather put the sauce on the bottom of the dish and place the stuffed peppers on top to bake so those beautiful peppers are visible and distinct from each other. Now on the tomato sauce: A compromise between my Mathboukha and commercial marinara straight out of the bottle — which I usually use — is to saute some garlic, add lots of chopped onion, then some petite diced fresh tomato, then the marinara, more salt to taste, a bunch of oregano to taste, and some crushed red pepper to taste. I’ve even added chopped spinach at the end for even more nutrition and color.