These Vegetarian Stuffed Peppers are stuffed with a millet black bean pilaf and topped with a beautiful roasted red pepper carrot pesto sauce. These beautiful vegetarian stuffed peppers happen to be vegan-adaptable and gluten-free too. If you’re vegan, either leave out the cheese in roasted red pepper carrot pesto, or substitute with a simple roasted red pepper sauce. This recipe accommodates a variety of special diets, and can be enjoyed by many people, whether or not they’re on a special diet.
The last few weeks, my CSA Box has been overflowing with red peppers, and I’ve been trying to figure out what to do with all of them…that’s how these Vegetarian Stuffed Peppers with Millet Black Bean Pilaf came about. I’ve been thinking of making stuffed peppers with whole grains for a while, so this was the perfect excuse to try them.
Millet is one of the ancient grains, along with quinoa, amaranth, sorghum, spelt and teff. If you’ve never tried millet, it cooks up light and fluffy and is very mild in taste. Although many recipes suggest a 2 to 1 ratio of liquid to millet, I found the ratio of 4 to 1 worked best in order to fully cook the millet. When I tried the 2 to 1 ratio, I almost burned the millet as it sucked up all the liquid before being fully cooked.
I still had some Roasted Red Pepper Carrot Pesto leftover from the other day, and thought it would make the perfect topping for these stuffed peppers. I cooked the millet pilaf on the stove first, then tossed in some black beans and tomatoes, before stuffing the peppers.
The peppers needed to bake for an hour (covered) before they were nice and tender. I put a little broth in the bottom of the pan before covering everything, which helped to steam the peppers and keep the millet pilaf nice and moist. Topped with a little thinned Roasted Red Pepper Carrot Pesto, these stuffed peppers are pretty enough to serve to company or to enjoy for a meatless meal. If you’re vegan, top with roasted red pepper sauce made by pureeing roasted red peppers, olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper.
Vegetarian Stuffed Peppers with Millet Black Bean Pilaf and Roasted Red Pepper Sauce
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup millet
- 2 1/2 cups vegetable broth divided
- 1 carrot peeled, diced
- 1/4 onion finely diced
- 1 sprig thyme
- 1/2 cup tomatoes chopped
- 1/2 cup cooked black beans
- 2 red bell peppers halved, seeded
- 4 tablespoons Roasted Red Pepper Sauce thinned with broth or water until desired consistency
Instructions
-
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
Place millet, 2 cups broth, carrot, onion and thyme sprig in a small saucepan.
Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low and cook, covered for 25 minutes.
Check after 20 minutes and add more broth as needed. Remove from heat and gently stir in chopped tomatoes and black beans.
Spoon into red bell pepper halves.
Pour 1/2 cup broth into a square baking pan or pie pan.
Place stuffed peppers in pan.
Cover with foil and bake for 1 hour.
To serve, spoon Roasted Red Pepper Pesto on top.
CSA Box #4: Vegetarian Stir-Fry Garlic Scapes with Five-Spice Pressed Tofu Recipe
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I LOVE the red pepper sauce!!! OMG it takes an already yummy dish to the next level!
I love this meal .. i adore black beans ..the only thing that i avoid when cooking this is the onion!
Wow…those peppers look incredible! What a great way to incorporate whole grains into your diet! 🙂 Definitely adding this recipe to the list! Yay! Thanks for the giveaway!
These are some of the tastiest looking stuffed bell peppers I have ever seen. Oh my! What a great giveaway. I would love to check out the cookbook and put those whole grains to use. My family is open to trying new things and it's great when I make a dish with whole grains and they can't tell the difference.
I pinned to Pinterest.
my favorite whole grain has to be steel cut oatmeal! I do use a lot of quinoa though too! This is an excellent recipe to add variety to an old favorite of my family!
Glad you all are liking these stuffed peppers. I really liked the creamy Roasted Red Pepper Carrot Pesto Sauce with these peppers.
Stuffed peppers look great! – i have a glut of peppers in my fridge right now, so will try these asap 🙂 in the last year or so, i've moved to baking all of our bread myself, with the focus on producing 100% whole wheat and/or whole grain loaves (leaning heavily on Peter Reinhart's whole grain breads book) – to that end, my pantry is more full of grains then it's ever been before, and i love it! the usual oatmeal has been joined by farro, barley, amaranth, quinoa, brown rices of all sizes, rye & wheat berries, etc. love the challenge of learning new ways to use all this great stuff!
These look fabulous! Can't wait to make this
Recipe looks great!! I just pinned it but not sure it sent to you. 🙂 http://pinterest.com/whitneysquash/
Stuffed peppers are the bomb!
I really love this recipe although I sub the walnuts since I'm allergic.
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Doing the unprocessed October, looking forward to trying new whole wheat alternatives this month. There are a few I haven't tried. Thanks for the recipe it looks great!
ever since I made stuffed peppers a few weeks ago, I've been obsessed with thinking of fun flavor combinations! I love that you topped this with pesto sauce…the whole thing sounds delicious!
I bought millet awhile ago but had a hard time figuring out what to do with it. This sounds great! Thanks!
I love love love stuffed peppers! And this is a great vegetarian option for when I have non- meat eating pals over. Thanks for sharing.
Very awesome looking recipe!
The most recent thing I've made is my Quinoa Salad with microgreens. Can't stop eating that one. http://gourmandeinthekitchen.com/2011/zucchini-quinoa-salad-with-microgreens/
Stumbled!
Hi Jeanette ~ what a yummy recipe! I like to roast red ripe juicy fresh tomatoes with cheese and add some whole grains on top for added nutrition and texture. 🙂
I follow you on Twitter and also get your email 🙂
I love hearing how all of you are adding more whole grains to your diet, and what you're making in your kitchen!
This looks awesome– I'm linking to this from my video on grilled veggies, which I filmed at Burning Man in Black Rock City, NV. At the end we discuss stuffed peppers, and yours is definitely an upgrade! Check it out at http://kitchenlesschef.com/2011/09/burning-man-grilled-veggies/
Prescott – great video – and thanks for linking to my Stuffed Pepper recipe!
ahhh i LOVE the roasted red pepper drizzle on the millet… stuffed in a red pepper! how delicious! i think i would stuff mine with quinoa since i am obsessed with it lately. btw, i got the package from king arthur's and it is AMAZING. i can't wait to start doing more GF experimenting!!! ahhhhhhh!
We are trying to eat more vegetable based meals in our home and I love stuffed peppers. I will have to give it a try they look wonderful and that red pepper carrot pesto sounds divine!
This sounds lovely. I like to add whole grain flour to many of my muffin, cookie, or bread recipes. Mmmm…I need carbs now.
Super excited to try this recipe and about the Bob Red Mill giveaway! I use the 10 grain hot cereal to make whole grain bagels (double batch) about once a week. There are a TON of recipes online and I combined and played around with so many until they were boyfriend approved! YUMMM I love love LOVE whole grains!!
I love millet. I hope you'll share one of your fabulous millet recipes with us at Beyond The Peel during the month of October for the Wholesome Wholegrain Event. http://www.beyondthepeel.net/2011/09/wholesome-whole-grain-cooking-event-millet.html
I am super new to cooking with grains but bought some last week and so have spent the last half an hour googling recipes (how I found you!). So I haven't a favourite yet, but this one from 101 cookbooks with millet looks really delicious: http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/mark-bittmans-autumn-millet-bake-recipe.html
I'm not a US resident but if my number gets picked I would love to gift the winnings to a friend in the US, am I allowed to do that?
I made this quinoa recipe for a picnic and everybody RAVED about it, most having never even tried quinoa before. My 5 and 8 year olds even loved it!
http://glutenfreegoddess.blogspot.com/2008/08/lime-quinoa-salad-with-mint.html
These look awesome! And hello… stuffed peppers! 😉
Hi Jeanette, Thanks for sharing this fun recipe over at the Wholesome Wholefood Cooking Event. It is the perfect example of how flexible millet can be.
What a fun event – millet is really versatile, and because it is so mild in flavor, it appeals to newbies to whole grains and is very kid-friendly.