By request of some of my readers, I will try to post more cooking recipes to my blog. One of the most liked Bosnian summer meals are stuffed peppers.
If you’re not familiar with Bosnian cooking, you should know that we like to cook from scratch, use fresh ingredients, seasonal vegetables and we take pride in what we do. Even though the ingredients and spices are simple, preparation and cooking process are lengthy and produce flavorful, hearty and memorable meals.
I usually make stuffed peppers two ways – stuffed with ground beef and cooked in sauce and the vegetarian way, stuffed with potatoes and rice and baked in the oven.
Today I would like to introduce ground meat stuffed peppers. I usually use ground beef for stuffing. Ground pork, or mix of ground beef and pork can be used as well. I have not tried making them with ground chicken or turkey. I also add a potato to the stuffing mixture, but that’s optional. Also the rice doesn’t have to be precooked. I half-cook mine, since I’ve had stuffed peppers where rice was not fully cooked and I want to avoid that. Most common peppers used in Bosnia are white peppers. I suggest not to use green bell peppers for this recipe, except if they are really small. A good substitute in the US are cubanelle peppers. I usually serve my stuffed peppers with mashed potatoes, but they can be served just by it self and with an addition of some good crusty bread to dip into sauce.
Bosnian Stuffed Peppers
Ingredients:
- 8-10 white peppers (2.4-2.8 oz OR 70-80 g each)
- 1 1/3 lb (600 g) ground beef
- 1/3 cup (80 g) rice
- 1 large potato (finely chopped)
- 1 small onion (finely chopped)
- 2-3 cloves garlic (finely chopped)
- 1 tbsp flat-leaf parsley (finely chopped)
- 1 egg
- 2 tbsp tomato puree
- 1 tsp Vegeta spice
- 1 tsp salt
- ½ tsp black pepper (freshly ground)
+ for the sauce
- 2-3 tbsp cooking oil
- 2 tbsp flour
- 1 tsp ground paprika
- 1 tsp salt
- ½ cup (120 ml) tomato puree
- 4 cups (1 l) water
Preparation:
- Wash and dry peppers. Cut open the top and remove all the seeds and membranes. Set aside.
- Cook the rice halfway (about 5 minutes) and strain. Set aside.
- Finely chop vegetables.
- Place ground beef in a medium bowl and sprinkle with all the spices.
- Add all vegetables, rice, egg and parsley and mix into a compact mass.
- Stuff each pepper and set on a plate next to the stove.
- Heat 3 tbsp of cooking oil in a frying pan. Lightly brown peppers on each side (just until fragrant, remove from the pan and place back on the plate.
- Pour the oil from frying into a cooking pot. You will make the sauce now.
- Lightly heat the oil, add 2 tbsp flour and stir gently until smooth.
- Add ground paprika and salt and stir for about 1 minute. Don’t let it burn.
- Add tomato puree and water. Stir and let it boil.
- When the sauce starts boiling, place all the peppers inside. Turn the temperature down to medium and simmer for about 45-50 minutes in a half covered pot.
*** Sauce will reduce during the cooking and will become thicker.
Serve with a side of mashed potatoes or just with bread.
bakingwithsibella.com 
These are beautiful dolmehs, Sibella! White bell-peppers are new to me. Yum!
Thank you Fae!These peppers are most common in Bosnia/EU and in the US you can buy them while they’re in season. Not sure if they belong to bell-kind. I have some in my garden, some people call them charlie peppers.
Wow… brilliant … and superb presentation too!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thank you so much! 🙂
Most Welcome!
Great detailed presentation. So easy to follow your recipes. I love stuffed peppers (what Bosnian doesn’t?) I should try adding a potato to the meat mixture, that sounds interesting. I do add some chopped onions to the sauce right before the tomato puree goes in and I love them with mashed potatoes too 🙂
Excited to see your version of potato stuffed peppers!
Thank you Jasminka! I add a potato to the meat mixture to avoid being too dense. Oh and my potato stuffed peppers recipe is still coming. I think I love those even better! 🙂 Have a great day!
Thanks for all the detailed steps. The finished product looks delicious.
Thanks Darryl! It is super delicious, I hope you get to try it some time!
This looks fantastic. I might have to give this a try. Thanks!
Thank you Soul Walker! It’s as poetic as food can get! 😉 You will love them!
Now this looks delicious, Sibella. I would never have thought of using potatoes, but I like that idea and plan to try this one when the heat abates a bit. ❤
Thank you Stacy! I am sure you will like it a lot, it’s super tasty! Have a wonderful day! 😀
These look so tasty! I actually bought some white peppers at the green grocer after seeing a pic you posted on Facebook so that I could try this 🙂
Awww that’s sweet, I am sure you will like them a lot! 🙂 But guess what, last night I went grocery shopping and bought all ingredients for your toffee cookies… 😀 I will make them tomorrow morning for us and for my friend’s kids (5 of them). I will probably not use coffee for kid’s cookies, not sure if they would like the taste, but for us I will use it. Have a great weekend Korena!
Haha, that’s awesome! The best kind of recipe inspiration comes from friends 🙂 I hope you guys like the cookies and have a great weekend yourself Sibella!
I’ve never seen white peppers but I can definitely use Cubanelle peppers. Your peppers sound delicious.
Hi Karen, white peppers just recently showed up on the US market, where in EU that’s the most popular kind. They are mild. smaller and not as thick as bell peppers. Hope you get a chance to try my stuffed peppers. 🙂
These are gorgeous. I’ve never seen white peppers either, but I’m a big fan of Bosnian food.
Glad to meet another fan of Bosnian food! 🙂 Thanks for visiting!
Oh yum! I haven’t had much Bosnian food to be honest, but it sure looks like it’s exactly my cup of tea! Looks soo delicious, can’t wait to try it 🙂
Thank you for this recipe!!! This weekend I found myself craving some of my favorite food from when I was living in Bosnia, so I tried and they turned out perfect and delicious. Thanks again
Hi there! I am so glad that they turned out perfect for you! Thanks so much for visiting! 🙂
Sibella
same ones like our friends cook for us in Croatia… and they are served the same way like in your picture above.
Good, isn’t it?! 🙂 Thanks for visiting!