Turkey Tomatillo Stuffed Peppers

This recipe is one that will leave your kitchen smelling AHHHMAZING. Promise. Is there anything better than the smell of roasting peppers along with freshly sauteed garlic and onion? I don’t think so.

However, I’ll let you be the judge on this one. It should come to almost no surprise by now that this recipe was the result of me trying to use up everything I had in the refrigerator. I bought some ground turkey from the store earlier this week with really no idea what to use it for. I’ve made turkey stuffed peppers before, and they were absolutely delicious- but that recipe required a few ingredients that I did not have on hand (corn, black beans, etc).

I mentally concocted this out before I began cooking, which happens about 75% of the time. The other 25% is me literally scrambling in the kitchen until I decide I know what to do. However, I think that this playful experimentation is one of the things I love most about cooking. 🙂 I was having an exceptionally monday-like Monday, and was laying in bed at about 7pm on the verge of taking a nap (yes, I nap that late. I’m in grad school!) when I decided to just get up and cook, because I knew it would change my attitude around.

Literally the moment I smelled those roasting peppers, it did. From that point on, the rest of the dish was easy like Sunday morning.

Not to mention, this meal requires two dishes- a casserole dish (or even baking pan) and a large saute pan. That’s it. Meaning only two items of clean-up. When my boyfriend is not around to be guilted into doing the dishes, I try to make as little of a mess as possible.

The dish itself is pretty simple as well. Bell peppers stuffed with ground turkey, kidney beans, tomatillo salsa/ salsa verde, and topped with cheese. That’s it. Easy!

PS: sorry for the bad quality pictures, as you can tell in the above picture, I didn’t bother to use my own camera for some reason and stuck solely to my iPhone. I didn’t anticipate that this dish would be one worth blogging about, but once I tasted it, I decided that I just HAD to share it with y’all. It’s really that good.

Ingredients: (serves 2)

4-5 bell peppers
1/2 can kidney beans
1 lb ground turkey
1/2 cup shredded mexican cheese
1 small onion
2 cloves minced garlic
1/2 cup salsa verde
Mexican seasonings (cumin, fajita seasoning, taco mix, whatever you’ve got!)
Salt and pepper to taste
Cilantro for garnish (I later added some sliced radish as well, good crunch)

Prep:

Preheat oven to 425 F
Slice around the stem of the peppers and discard the top and the seeds inside. Reach in and take out the white cores of the peppers if desired.
Chop onion and mince garlic

Cook!:

Place peppers in non-stick casserole dish in the oven until they start to reeally sweat. (About 15 minutes, but they’ll just cook while you perform the next steps)
Heat oil in a BIG saute pan and saute the onion and garlic until aromatic (about 1 min)
Add ground turkey to saute pan and brown until cooked through
Once turkey is “browned” (it won’t look brown- more similar to egg whites but you get the idea) drain excess fat. Add the kidney beans, salsa verde, and season to your hearts content with salt, pepper, and mexican seasoning. Mix well until everything is moist.
Remove peppers from oven and stuff with turkey-bean mixture
Place back into the oven for 5 minutes, then remove
Turn oven to broiler setting. Top the stuffed peppers with some good handfuls of mexican cheese and place back into oven for 2-3 minutes, until you get a nice golden-brown color on top.
Top with cilantro, sliced radish, or even a dollop of sour cream and enjoy!

Gluten-free, low-carb, and extremely high in protein! So much protein that you’ll get full off one. Seriously. Best enjoyed after a sweaty yoga session on your kitchen floor- or maybe that’s just me 🙂