Air Fryer Vegetarian Stuffed Peppers

The flavours of muhammara – a Middle Eastern roasted red pepper and walnut dip – are front and centre in food blogger and air fryer expert Poppy O’Toole’s vegetarian stuffed pepper recipe. “A beautiful main dish when you’re fancying a meat-free day, doing Veganuary (use vegan butter) or if you have a vegetarian friend coming round for dinner,” is how O’Toole describes these meatless stuffed bell peppers in her book Poppy Cooks: The Actually Delicious Air Fryer Cookbook. These are “tasty with a bit of spice and you don’t miss any meat!”

More filling options to put in vegetarian stuffed peppers :

Good additions are crumbled feta, labneh, garlic, other soft herbs (like cilantro, chervil, chives and dill) or lemon-yogurt dressing (add 1 crushed garlic clove and lemon juice to yogurt to taste).

Air Fryer Stuffed Peppers

Poppy O'Toole's air fryer recipe for tuffed peppers with a muhammara-inspired vegetarian filling.

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Ingredients

• 3 tbsp olive oil
• knob of butter
• 1 tsp cumin seeds
• 1 onion finely chopped
• 1 cup (200 g) basmati rice rinsed until the water runs clear
• ½-1 tsp ground allspice to taste
• 1-2 tsp Aleppo pepper to taste, plus extra to sprinkle
• 2 tomatoes deseeded and finely chopped, or 1 tbsp tomato purée/paste
• ⅔ cup (30 g) flat-leaf parsley leaves and stems roughly chopped
• 4 romano peppers if you can’t find romano peppers, use regular red peppers instead
• ⅓ cup (40 g) walnuts toasted and roughly chopped
• sea-salt flakes and ground black pepper

Instructions

 

• Warm 2 tbsp of the olive oil and the knob of butter in a medium saucepan. Add the cumin seeds and cook for 30 seconds, until fragrant. Add the onion and cook on a medium-low heat for about 10 minutes, until translucent and lightly golden.
• While the onion is cooking, tip the rice into a saucepan of salted water, bring to the boil and cook for 4 minutes, then drain and refresh in cold water.
• Once the onions are cooked, remove the pan from the heat. Add the par-boiled rice, along with the allspice, Aleppo pepper, chopped tomato or tomato purée and half the parsley, and season generously.
• Heat the air fryer to 350°F (180°C).
• Make a slit down the length of a pepper, starting at the top and stopping about ¾-inch (2 cm) from the bottom, so that you have a pouch. Carefully remove the seeds and pith and rub with a little of the remaining olive oil. Fill the pocket with one quarter of the rice mixture and gently push the edges together. Repeat with the remaining peppers and rice mixture.
• Get the peppers into the air-fryer basket, making sure there is space between each, and cook for 20 to 30 minutes, until beginning to char.
• Sprinkle the peppers with the toasted walnuts, the remaining parsley and a big sprinkling of Aleppo pepper. Serve individually or on a big serving platter.

More delicious air fryer recipes from Poppy O’Toole

Air Fryer Honey Soy Salmon

Poppy O'Toole's recipe for sweet, sticky marinated salmon cooked to perfection in an air fryer.

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Air Fryer Veggie Spring Rolls

Poppy O'Toole's customizable recipe for perfectly-crispy air fryer spring rolls.

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Excerpted from Poppy Cooks: The Actually Delicious Air Fryer Cookbook by Poppy O’Toole. Copyright © 2023 Poppy O’Toole. Photographs by Haarala Hamilton. Published by Appetite by Random House®, a division of Penguin Random House Canada Limited. Reproduced by arrangement with the Publisher. All rights reserved.