SLOW COOKER STUFFED PEPPER SOUP
Stuffed peppers but in soup form. A total winner. It's easy, hearty, and packed with flavor. After browning ground beef, onions, red and green peppers, and garlic on the stove, transfer everything to your slow cooker where it simmers away in a tomatoey broth. To help ease weeknight dinner chaos, I cooked everything on the stovetop the night before, transferred it into my lined slow cooker, added the remaining ingredients, refrigerated, and the next night turned on the slow cooker in advance of dinner. We loved this comforting soup.
YIELD: serves 6
PREP TIME: 15 minutes
COOK TIME: about 15 minutes stovetop, 4 hours high or 8 hours low in slow cooker
TOTAL TIME: about 4 to 8 hours, or as needed
INGREDIENTS:
- 1 pound 95% lean ground beef
- 3/4 teaspoon kosher salt, or to taste
- 1 1/2 cups finely diced sweet Vidalia onion (from about 1 medium/large onion)
- 1 1/2 cups chopped red bell pepper (from about 1 large pepper)
- 2/3 cup chopped green bell pepper (about half of 1 large pepper)
- 3 cloves garlic, chopped
- two 14.5-ounce cans petite diced tomatoes (I used no salt added)
- 1 3/4 cups tomato sauce (one 15-ounce can)
- 2 cups reduced sodium, fat-free chicken broth
- 1/2 teaspoon dried marjoram
- 1/2 teaspoon dried basil
- 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
- 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper, or to taste
- 3 to 4 tablespoons fresh Italian flat-leaf parsley, finely minced
- 3 cups cooked white or brown rice
DIRECTIONS:
- To a large nonstick skillet or large Dutch oven, add the ground beef, kosher salt, and cook over medium-high heat to brown, crumbling it with a spatula as it cooks and tossing it to ensure even cooking. Cook through, about 5 minutes or as necessary. Drain fat if necessary.
- Add the onion, peppers, garlic, and cook for about 6 to 8 minutes, or until vegetables have softened, stir intermittently.
- Line a 6-quart slow cooker with a slow cooker liner if desired and transfer the beef mixture into it.
- Add the broth, diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, marjoram, basil, oregano, pepper, stir to combine, cover, and cook on high for about 4 hours or low for about 8 hours. All slow cookers vary in their heat intensity. Cook until done.
- Stir in the fresh parsley.
- Taste soup and make any necessary seasoning adjustments, i.e. more salt, pepper, pinch of sugar, etc.
- Ladle about 1 1/2 cups soup into each bowl and top with about 1/2 cup rice. Tip - Don't add the rice to the slow cooker because if you have leftover soup, the rice will turn very mushy in the following days. Instead top individual bowls with rice that you store separately from the soup in an airtight container. Both soup and rice will keep airtight in the fridge, stored separately, for up to 5 days or for up to 3 months in the freezer.
Adapted from Skinnytaste Fast and Slow, reprinted with permission
