Stuffed Peppers with Quinoa, Grilled Vegetables and Pesto Sauce Recipe (2024)

August 8, 2012 by Jeanette 22 Comments

Stuffed Peppers with Quinoa, Grilled Vegetables and Pesto Sauce is a healthy vegetarian main course that will brighten up any dinner.

Stuffed Pepper with Quinoa, Grilled Vegetables, Caprese Salad and Pesto Sauce

This week on Food Network’s Summer Fest, a group of talented bloggers are featuring farm fresh recipes using Peppers that are in season. Each week, recipes using farm fresh produce will be featured on the Food Network website along with recipes by a group of fabulous food bloggers.

During the summer, I love taking full advantage of all the fresh vegetables at the local farmer’s market as well as my weekly CSA Box supply. With the plethora of zucchini, summer squash, eggplant and peppers, I’ve been grilling vegetables a lot lately.

In fact, I like to make a big batch so quick lunches can be thrown together. Lately, I’ve also been keeping a stash of cooked quinoa in the refrigerator as a protein rich whole grain to toss into salads (technically, quinoa is a seed). I also have been making lots of pesto this summer so usually there’s a jar of some variety of pesto in my refrigerator as well.

This Stuffed Pepper recipe is very loosely a recipe. It’s more of an assembly of ingredients, and in this case, a great way to use up leftover grilled vegetables and some caprese salad from the weekend. Just a few melted mini mozzarella balls and some Pesto Sauce on top make this stuffed pepper a real treat.
These stuffed peppers would make a nice meatless lunch or dinner. To learn more about the health benefits of bell peppers, check out my Bell Pepper Power Foods Post.

Be sure to check out the following recipes from all my friends participating in this week’s Summer Fest!
Cooking With Elise: Roasted Red Pepper Hummus
What’s Gaby Cooking: Oven-Roasted Peppers With Herbed Breadcrumbs
And Love It Too: Roasted Red Pepper Paleo Hummus
Feed Me Phoebe: Grilled Flank Steak With Gazpacho Sauce
Big Girls Small Kitchen: Seared Pepper Tacos With Pintos and Avocado Crema
Delicious Lean: Peppery Kung Pao
Daily*Dishin: Shrimp and Chorizo With Red Pepper Chermoula Sauce
Napa Farmhouse 1885: Spicy Roasted Red Pepper Dip With Baked Corn Tortillas
Thursday Night Dinner: Black Bean and Sweet Pepper Salad
Cooking Channel: 5 Stuffed Pepper Favorites
HGTV Gardens: Garden to Table: Peppers
Sweet Life Bake: Rajas de Poblano con Elote y Crema
Dishin & Dishes: Bacon, Onion and Green Chile “Jam”
Healthy Eats: Peppers for Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner
FN Dish: Meat and Peppers

During the summer, I grill extra zucchini and summer squash so I have extras for lunch and quick meals. This is a great way to use up leftover grilled vegetables. I happened to have leftover caprese salad from the weekend, so I tossed that in as well.

Prep Time 10 minutes

Cook Time 10 minutes

Total Time 20 minutes

Servings 2

Ingredients

1red bell pepper
1cupcooked quinoa
1/2cupchopped grilled vegetables
1/2cupcherry tomato capreseor a few mini mozzarella balls and some chopped tomatoes
1tablespoonpesto
olive oilto brush pepper

Pesto Sauce

1tablespoonpesto
a squeeze of lemon juice
water to thin dressing

Instructions

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
Cut pepper in half and remove membranes and seeds.
In a small bowl, toss together cooked quinoa, grilled vegetables, cherry tomato caprese and pesto. Divide stuffing between red bell pepper halves, making sure mozzarella cheese balls are on top so they melt.
Bake for 10 minutes or until stuffing is heated through and cheese melts.
To make Pesto Sauce, mix pesto, lemon juice and water to achieve desired consistency.
Drizzle stuffed peppers with Pesto Sauce before serving.