Vegetarian Mediterranean Stuffed Peppers Recipe

We’re going ‘fusion food’ with this vegetarian Mediterranean stuffed peppers recipe.

Turkish cuisine is famous for its dolma recipes and peppers stuffed with rice filling is perhaps the most famous of those recipes.

But for this recipe, we’re going with the Mediterranean label because, whilst we’re still using Turkish ingredients for our delicious filling, there’s a few combination differences and some slight differences in ingredients.

So what we end up with is a Turkish Mediterranean twist.

It’s just an easy stuffed peppers recipe that we like to make occasionally when we fancy a healthy vegetarian meal for a change – something substantial that tastes great and is packed with Mediterranean flavours.

We made it recently so decided it was about time the recipe was put on the blog. So, here we are.

And we make so many of the peppers on purpose because it means we then get to enjoy the meal again the next day.

A perfect easy lunch that’s a real treat!

A Few Differences

So, where do those differences come in?

• Bulgur wheat – commonly used in Turkish stuffed vegetable recipes but we’re using fine bulgur wheat (köftelik bulgur) rather than the larger grained bulgur (pilavlık bulgur) that requires a longer cooking time.
  For this Mediterranean stuffed pepper recipe, we prefer the texture of the fine bulgur. It feels more summery for us because it’s used in other dishes we like to make on warmer days like mercimek köftesi.
• Cooking method – Rather than in a pan on the hob, our stuffed peppers will be oven-baked. Whilst this method is sometimes used for Turkish dolma, we won’t be cooking our bulgur-stuffed peppers in liquid. Bulgurlu fırında biber dolması (bulgur-stuffed oven baked peppers) without the sauce.
• Peppers – fresh Turkish ingredients on the local markets are becoming more varied over time. And, as you’d expect, that means Turkish cuisine is evolving. In years gone by in Fethiye, we only ever saw small green bell peppers (dolmalık biber) to be used for stuffing.
  Recently, however, red bell peppers and yellow bell peppers have also appeared on stalls. Sweet peppers that are perfect for making our vibrantly coloured, delicious Mediterranean stuffed peppers.

Some Turkish Staples

The rest of our ingredients are all Turkish, of course – you just don’t often see some of them used as a filling for stuffed peppers.

• We’re going to be using a full fat Turkish beyaz peynir (white cheese). If you haven’t got a Turkish supermarket near you, try to get a soft feta cheese.
• Stuffed peppers just aren’t the same without the inclusion of nuts and whilst pine nuts are / were a staple in fillings in Turkish cuisine, we’re using broken walnuts.
  Aside from the fact that we love walnuts and they’re also popular in Turkish dishes, they’re also more substantial and cheaper than pine nuts.
• Dried fruits – but of course! You can use currants or raisins if you like but we love some chopped up sun dried apricots. They’re a little bit sweeter.
• Olives – a Turkish breakfast essential but we also love them in our Mediterranean version of stuffed peppers. As you can see in the photos, we go for black olives but you can use green olives if you like. Or both.
• And then we’ve got some lovely fresh herbs. For us, torn fresh basil leaves just epitomises Mediterranean. As well as adding some to the stuffing mixture, a garnish of fresh basil is an essential for us.
• And the dried herbs and warm spices are traditional to Turkish dishes – dried mint, ground cumin and paprika. If you have some homemade Turkish spice blend made up, you can use a generous sprinkling of that, instead.
• For our bulgur wheat, just like when we’re making out Turkish bulgur wheat salad, kısır, we’ll be adding some salça (tomato paste) and a good glug of olive oil for flavour and texture.

How We Make Our Vegetarian Mediterranean Stuffed Peppers

Aside from being a perfect texture, the great thing about using fine bulgur wheat for your Mediterranean stuffed peppers is it makes life really easy.

We just need to boil the kettle and pour boiling water over our salça in a cup.

Dissolve that and then pour it over the bulgur in a large bowl and cover with a cloth.

And we can leave the bulgur to absorb the water and soften whilst we prepare the rest of our filling and our peppers.

The peppers need to cut in half from top to bottom and the seed pod removed and then we just turn the pepper halves over and tap them to make sure all the seeds have fallen out.

Turkish bell peppers tend to be quite small so if you’re using large bell peppers, you won’t need to make as many.

When your bulgur is soft and the water is absorbed, we add the olive oil and fluff it all up before adding the rest of our stuffing ingredients and giving it all a good mix.

And now, it’s just a case of taking a pepper half, one at a time, and adding the filling to them. Pack in firmly but not too tightly.

When we’re done, the stuffed halved peppers go into the oven for around 30 minutes until the peppers have softened.

You can either eat them hot or at room temperature. We like to garnish them with some crumbled cheese, fresh basil and a drizzle of olive oil.

A great recipe for a sunny day – a healthy dinner with a side salad, a light lunch or an accompaniment to grills like köfte or chicken shish.

And as we’re in Turkey, of course our Mediterranean stuffed peppers are extra tasty with a lovely big serving of Turkish süzme yoghurt (or plain Greek yoghurt) on the side.

Mix a couple of grated garlic cloves and some hot red pepper flakes into the yoghurt, too, for a bit of kick! Yummy!

Our Vegetarian Mediterranean Stuffed Peppers Recipe

Let’s get prepping and cooking!

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