These Instant Pot Sausage and Rice Stuffed Peppers are the perfect, easy to make comfort food, good any night of the week! You don’t need to heat up the kitchen anymore to make your favorite stuffed peppers and, you won’t have a sink full of dishes from preparing them! How awesome is that?!
I grew up with my grandmother’s stuffed peppers, and boy, were they delicious! However, I just never had time to recreate her amazing recipe! This is a spin on that amazing meal using an Instant Pot, and you can do the entire meal in your Instant Pot, with no additional dishes! Now, I can pass this yummy meal on to my own children in much less time than my grandmother used to make it.
What I love about recipes like these Instant Pot Sausage and Rice Stuffed Peppers is that you can always tweak them to make them your own. I used HOT Italian Ground Sausage to make these Instant Pot Sausage and Rice Stuffed Peppers, but if that is just too spicy for your family, you can easily use a mild sausage or even hamburger to take that kick down a notch or two!
For these Instant Pot Sausage and Rice Stuffed Peppers, I found that the pot in pot method works better then setting them right in the Instant Pot. You can set them on the trivet if you want, I just tend to have a hard time getting them out in one piece after cooking them that way because they get really soft. They are also made with pre-cooked rice and cooked meat. I could never get the rice and meat to be done at the same time when trying to do raw meat and uncooked rice. You can use parboiled white rice if you’d like to save some time though.
Speaking of the sausage, you are going to want to turn your IP on to sauté and brown it with the chopped onions. Once it is smelling good and looking done, then add in the diced tomatoes and sauté for just 2 more minutes. While you are getting those ingredients sautéed to perfection, wash your peppers, and then, cut off the tops and scoop out the seeds. We love having a variety of color, so just pick your favorite colored bell peppers to use.
Now, take your cooked rice, sausage mixture, HALF of the cheese and all of the seasonings and mix them all together. Use this mixture to stuff the freshly cleaned out peppers. Using the rest of the mozzarella cheese, sprinkle it across the top of each of the peppers. ***You can pre-cook the rice in your IP first, and then go back to the beginning of the recipe and get started!***
Using an oven-safe casserole dish that fits in your IP, place your stuffed peppers in the dish inside your IP. Now, this part will depend on the size of your IP and the size of your dish. You may need to make a top layer of peppers, or just cook 3 at a time (recipe makes 6). Don’t forget to add 1.5 cups of water into the IP and then place the dish on top of a trivet inside the Instant Pot.
Sounds easy enough? That’s because it is! If you love stuffed peppers, but hate all the work, you need to try making them in your Instant Pot! You won’t be sorry you did!
Oh, and here’s where you buy HOG casings for sausage making.
Instant Pot Sausage and Rice Stuffed Peppers
Instant Pot Sausage and Rice Stuffed Peppers
Equipment
Ingredients
- 1 lb hot Italian ground sausage
- ½ white onion chopped
- 3 medium tomatoes diced
- 6 bell peppers any color
- 1 ½ cups pre-cooked rice
- 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
- ½ teaspoon onion powder
- ½ teaspoon garlic powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon pepper
- ½ cup shredded mozzarella cheese divided
Instructions
- Turn the Instant Pot on to sauté and brown the Italian sausage with the onion. Add in the tomatoes and continue to sauté for 2 minutes.
- Wash and cut top off of the bell peppers. Scoop out seeds.
- Mix together rice, sausage mixture, half the cheese and seasonings. Stuff peppers with rice/sausage filling.
- Top with remaining mozzarella cheese.
- Place peppers in an oven-safe casserole dish that fits into the Instant Pot. Depending on the size of your peppers and casserole dish, you can either add a couple peppers in a top layer or cook 3 at a time.
- Add 1 ½ cups of water to the Instant Pot.
- Put dish/pan on top of trivet and lower into the inner pot of the Instant Pot.
- Turn pressure valve to sealing and set manual pressure on high for 5 minutes.
- Do a quick release when pressure cooking time has elapsed.
- Serve and enjoy!
Nutrition Information
Nutrition information provided is an estimate and will vary based on cooking methods and brands of ingredients used.
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