The Cost of Making Stuffed Bell Peppers

The 20-minute version. With an extra five minutes to cool.

So I haven’t done one of these in a couple of weeks because I haven’t made any new recipes, but then I got inspired by a BuzzFeed story about “perfect summer dinners” and decided to make stuffed bell peppers.

7 Easy Summer Dinners To Eat This Week

I did not use BuzzFeed’s recipe, though. I kept it super-simple by stuffing my bell pepper with a quinoa-rice mix from a box and topping it with the pine nuts I used for the spinaci alla Romana recipe.

The Cost of Making Spinaci Alla Romana

I also cooked the pepper and quinoa-rice mix separately, baking the peppers in my oven while I boiled the grains on the stove. Both of them were done in 20 minutes, although I gave everything five minutes to cool before I tried stuffing the pepper.

Here’s how much everything cost me:

Orange bell pepper: $1.25 (there was a four-for-$5 deal)

Near East quinoa blend: $0.66 (roughly a third of a $1.99, 4.9 oz box)

1 tablespoon Signature Select extra virgin olive oil: $0.12 (from that same $5.99, 25.4 fl oz bottle I’ve been working through for months)

1/4 cup pine nuts: $0.34 (from a $4.60, 1.14 lb bulk bin scoop)

1 cup O Organics mixed baby greens: $1.11 (from a $3.34, 3 cup tub)

1 tablespoon Kraft zesty Italian dressing: $0.09 (from a $2.79, 16 oz bottle)

Total cost: $3.57

I could have done the BuzzFeed recipe where you mix together ground beef and feta cheese and cut up your own parsley and mint, but this “recipe” that I “invented” worked too, and it was significantly cheaper and I didn’t have to chop anything.

Someday I may get more into snipping my own parsley and mint—I used to be more into that cooking-from-scratch-and-not-a-box ideal—but this series has always been about what I actually eat and how much time and money it actually costs me.

What do you stuff your bell peppers with? Any favorite combinations, like mac-and-cheese or pepperoni and mozzarella? (Also, now I want to try both of those.)

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