Jack-O-Lantern Stuffed Peppers: The Ultimate Spooky Halloween Dinner!

These jack-o-lantern stuffed peppers carve orange bell peppers to look like tiny pumpkins, then fill them with a seasoned ground beef, rice, and cheddar mixture and bake until tender. Served over a “pool of blood” spicy tomato sauce, they make a genuinely fun and easy Halloween dinner the whole family can help put together. Total time is about 1 hour 40 minutes, most of it hands-off baking.

I am going to tell you how to make Jack-O-Lantern Stuffed Peppers!

That is right. You have stuffed peppers and you have stuffed pumpkins, but you have never stuffed a pepper made to look like a pumpkin. And the great thing about this easy, fun, and kid friendly technique is that you can stuff pretty much anything you want inside, except for a candle. But besides that, pretty much anything is going to work.

Why You Will Love This Halloween Dinner

Besides being the absolute perfect Halloween dinner, this recipe is incredibly forgiving and endlessly customizable. It is a fantastic technique to get the kids involved in the kitchen, and it turns a standard weeknight meal into a festive, edible centerpiece. Plus, you get to serve it on a literal “pool of blood” (also known as a spicy tomato sauce), which is guaranteed to be a hit.

If you love a fun, hands-on Halloween dinner idea like this one, you are also going to want to try my Mummy Meatballs, another ground beef Halloween main that turns dinner into a genuine family activity.

What You Will Need

Special Equipment

• Small, sharp paring knife, for carving the faces
• 9×13 inch or 8×8 inch baking dish, depending on the size and number of peppers
• Aluminum foil
• Large sheet pan, to catch condensation and drips
• Meat thermometer, to safely confirm the filling is fully cooked

For the Peppers

• 4 large orange bell peppers, firm, wide, and able to stand upright
• 1 tbsp olive oil, for greasing the dish

For the Filling

• 1 lb ground beef (80/20 blend highly recommended!)
• 1 cup cooked white or brown rice
• 1 cup cheddar cheese, shredded
• 1/4 cup green onions, finely sliced
• 2 cloves garlic, finely minced
• 2 tbsp ketchup
• 1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
• 1 tsp kosher salt
• 1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
• 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper, to scare away the evil spirits
• Note: if you only have very lean beef, add 2 tbsp of melted butter to the mix to provide necessary moisture and fat.

For Serving

• 1 1/2 cups spicy tomato sauce or marinara, heated, for the “pool of blood”

Let us Get Cooking!

1. Prep the Oven and Dish

Preheat your oven to 400°F (200°C). Lightly grease your baking dish with olive oil. Place your carved peppers in a lightly oiled baking dish. In a perfect world, it should be big enough to just fit the peppers snugly.

2. Carving Your “Facial Orifices”

The first thing you need are some of the biggest, most nicely shaped orange bell peppers you can find. Then, you will want to identify the largest face, or the section with the most surface area in which to carve facial orifices. You do that exactly how you do a regular pumpkin, only on a much smaller scale. This carving step should be handled by an adult, since it uses a small, sharp paring knife on a rounded surface, even though the rest of the recipe is a great kid-friendly activity.

Take a small paring knife and make the classic three cut triangle eyes, as well as the classic three cut triangle nose. Personally, for the eyes, I like the triangles pointing down and the triangle of the nose pointing up. I think it looks more accurate and menacing.

For the mouth, go with three teeth on the top and two teeth on the bottom, or as they say in some parts, three tooths on the top and two tooths on the bottom. Once it is done, it should look like a classic jack-o-lantern, only much smaller.

3. Prepping the Peppers

Once you finished the face holes, take your knife and carefully slice the top off each pepper. Trim out any of that white membrane inside, reach into the pepper and scoop out any loose seeds, and that is pretty much it for pepper production.

The only other thing you should do is trim that seed pod away from the top “lid,” because once these are stuffed, you go ahead and place that back over.

Chef Tip: Keep each lid directly next to its matching pepper so you know which top belongs to which bottom! Figuring out which lid goes on which pepper is surprisingly difficult.

4. Making the Stuffing (Do Not Make This Meat Mistake!)

Now you can move on to make your stuffing. For this quick and experimental stuffing, you wanted a low maintenance, non labor intensive filling that required absolutely no sauteing.

Started with some lean ground beef, which really should not be lean ground beef, because lean meats are not as good for stuffings. You really do want some meat fat in there! Because my beef was way too lean, I had to add some melted butter to compensate. Do yourself a favor and just use 80/20 ground beef.

You are going to season your meat up with kosher salt, freshly ground black pepper, and a few shakes of cayenne to scare away the evil spirits. Add a little bit of Worcestershire sauce, finely minced garlic, freshly sliced green onions, a splash of ketchup for sweetness and acidity, and a nice handful of cheddar cheese.

Two quick tips for the cheese: try to get it all in the bowl, and if you see a piece of plastic wrap, pull it out!

Finally, finish up with some kind of starchy filler, like cooked rice, which is very traditional for stuffed peppers. Mix it all up thoroughly with your hands or the stirring utensil of your choice until fully incorporated. A quick food safety reminder: since this involves handling raw ground beef, wash your hands, utensils, and any surfaces touched by the raw meat before moving on to the next step. And by the way, just because using rice does not mean you have to. You could use cooked quinoa, lentils, barley, or even breadcrumbs for a meatloaf stuffed pepper. The point is, use what you want.

5. Stuff the Peppers

Spoon the meat and rice filling into each carved pepper, packing it as evenly as you can. Place the matching pepper lids back on top.

6. The Headless Peppers Go in the Oven

Arrange the stuffed peppers in the greased baking dish so they support each other. Set the baking dish on a larger sheet pan. You are going to loosely wrap the dish with aluminum foil, and you do not want the moisture that condenses on the foil to drip down to the bottom of your oven.

Transfer them into the center of a 400°F oven. Bake for 60 minutes, at which point pull off the foil and give them another 10 to 15 minutes, or until the peppers are nice and tender, slightly blistered, and take on a little bit of golden color around the edges. Before serving, insert a meat thermometer into the center of the filling to confirm it has reached an internal temperature of 160°F (71°C), since the peppers looking done does not automatically mean the beef inside is fully cooked.

When they come out, if you squint a little bit and you have had a few glasses of hard cider, they kind of sort of look like little jack-o-lanterns!

7. Serve It Up on a “Pool of Blood”

After taking a few contractually obligated pictures, go ahead and ladle a generous “pool of blood,” also known as a warm spicy tomato sauce, onto each serving plate. Carefully transfer a hot jack-o-lantern pepper right into the center of the sauce. Enjoy!

What to Serve Alongside Jack-O-Lantern Stuffed Peppers

• A simple side of buttery mashed potatoes rounds out the meal and is a total kid favorite alongside the spicy tomato sauce.
• My German Potato Salad makes a tangy, unexpected side if you want to switch things up from a typical mashed potato pairing.
• A crisp green salad balances out the richness of the beef and cheese filling nicely.
• For dessert, my Rice Crispy Eyeballs or Spooky Chocolate Covered Strawberries keep the Halloween theme going all the way through the meal.

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Jack-O-Lantern Stuffed Peppers

Recipe by Sana Rei

0.0 from 0 votes

Course: Main CourseCuisine: AmericanDifficulty: Easy

Servings

4

servings

Prep time

25

minutes

Cooking time

1

hour 

15

minutes

Calories

480

kcal

Total time

1

hour 

40

minutes

Turn standard orange bell peppers into spooky, edible carved pumpkins! Stuffed with a savory, easy-to-mix beef and rice filling and served on a “pool of blood” spicy tomato sauce, this is the ultimate kid-friendly Halloween dinner.

Ingredients

• Equipment Needed:

• Paring knife

• Baking dish

• Aluminum foil

• Sheet pan

• Meat thermometer

• Ingredients:

• 4 large orange bell peppers

• 15ml (1 tbsp) olive oil, for greasing

• 450g (1 lb) 80/20 ground beef

• 150g (1 cup) cooked white or brown rice

• 115g (1 cup) cheddar cheese, shredded

• 25g (1/4 cup) green onions, finely sliced

• 2 cloves garlic, finely minced

• 30g (2 tbsp) ketchup

• 15ml (1 tbsp) Worcestershire sauce

• 5g (1 tsp) kosher salt

• 1g (1/2 tsp) freshly ground black pepper

• 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

• 350ml (1 1/2 cups) spicy tomato sauce, for serving

Directions

• Preheat oven to 400°F (200°C). Lightly oil a baking dish that fits the 4 peppers snugly.
• An adult should handle this step: find the widest face on each pepper and use a paring knife to carve triangle eyes, a triangle nose, and a toothy mouth.
• Slice the tops off the peppers. Keep each top next to its pepper to match them up later. Cut the seed pod away from the top lid, and scoop the remaining seeds and white membranes out of the pepper cavities.
• In a large bowl, combine the ground beef, cooked rice, cheddar cheese, green onions, garlic, ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, kosher salt, black pepper, and cayenne. Mix well with your hands. Wash hands, utensils, and surfaces afterward since this involves raw ground beef.
• Stuff the filling evenly into the hollowed peppers. Place their respective lids back on top.
• Place the peppers into the prepared baking dish. Set the baking dish onto a sheet pan to catch any drips. Cover the dish loosely with foil.
• Bake in the center of the oven for 1 hour.
• Remove the foil and bake for another 10 to 15 minutes until the peppers are wrinkled, tender, and slightly browned.
• Insert a meat thermometer into the center of the filling to confirm it has reached 160°F (71°C) before serving.
• Serve hot by placing each pepper onto a plate poured with warm spicy tomato sauce.

Notes

• The Meat: Do not use extra-lean ground beef for this raw-mix method. Stuffed peppers need some fat to stay moist. If you only have lean ground beef, add 2 tablespoons of melted butter to the mixture.
• The Grain: Swap the white rice for brown rice, cooked quinoa, lentils, farro, or even seasoned breadcrumbs.
• Meat Safety: Always confirm the filling reaches 160°F internally with a meat thermometer before serving. The peppers looking tender and blistered on the outside does not guarantee the beef inside is fully cooked.
• Knife Safety: The carving step uses a sharp paring knife on a curved surface and should be handled by an adult, even though the rest of the recipe is great for kids to help with.
• Cross-Contamination: Wash hands, utensils, and surfaces after handling the raw ground beef mixture.
• Pro Tip: If your peppers are leaning or rolling around in the dish, slice a thin, flat sliver off the very bottom so they stand up straight. Do not cut too deep or the juices will leak out.
• Allergen Note: Contains dairy (cheddar) and, depending on the brand, gluten and fish (most Worcestershire sauce contains anchovies).
• Nutrition: Calories are estimated and will vary based on pepper size and cheese amount.