These Chicken Taco Stuffed Mini Peppers make an ideal appetizer or a healthy kid-sized snack.
Tex-Mex flavours appeal to all ages. Tacos, burritos, enchiladas, chimichangas, quesadillas . . . these are all dishes we crave. And who doesn't love good old nachos and seven-layer dip? Sometimes, however, we don't want the tortillas that these recipes often call for. These chicken taco stuffed mini peppers are the answer!
These have all the elements of great Tex-Mex flavours---ground meat, spicy taco seasoning, warm melted cheesy goodness, and avocados, too. I developed this recipe for my family's tastes by using ground chicken, homemade taco seasoning, Manchego cheese or goat mozza, and a dairy-free avocado cream. They're a healthier game-day snack and a tasty meal for the pint-sized people in your home.
Feel free to adapt this for your family. Change the meat or change the cheese: they'll still be delicious!
Split the peppers, brown the meat and mix it with some chopped peppers and taco seasoning. Stuff the pepper halves and cook for a few minutes while you blend the avocado cream together. Then top with cheese of your choice, drizzle with the avocado cream and serve!
Easy to make and guaranteed to disappear from the serving tray quickly!
Taco Stuffed Mini Peppers
Ingredients
- 1 lb ground chicken or turkey
- 3 tablespoon homemade Taco Seasoning Mix or 1 pkg. store bought
- ½ cup water
- 1 teaspoon cornstarch
- 16 mini peppers
- 1 cup shredded cheese of your choice
Avocado Cream Sauce
- 1 cup loosely packed cilantro
- ½ large avocado or 1 small avocado, skin and seed removed
- juice of ½ lime
- 1 clove garlic
- ¼ cup olive oil
- 1 ½ teaspoons apple cider vinegar or white wine vinegar
- pinch of salt
Instructions
- Heat oven to 350°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper for easy clean-up.
- Slice ⅓ of the more curved side of each pepper off (so that they will sit nicely on a plate). Finely chop the third that you sliced off and reserve for later. You'll be adding this into the meat mixture.
- Seed the peppers.
- Heat a skillet over medium-high heat. Cook the ground meat and reserved peppers for 5 -7 minutes or until meat is browned. Drain if necessary. Stir in the taco seasoning mix.
- Mix the cornstarch and water in a separate small bowl and add to the meat mixture. Cook for an additional 8 to 10 minutes. Cool slightly.
- Fill each pepper with the taco meat mixture and place on the prepared baking sheet. Bake for 5 minutes.
- While peppers are baking, make the Avocado Cream. Put all ingredients in a food processor and pulse until smooth.
- Remove peppers from oven and top with shredded cheese. Return to oven for 1 - 2 minutes to melt the cheese.
- Place on serving platter and drizzle with Avocado Cream.
Wendi
Hi! These look terrific! I have never cooked with the mini peppers (well - I take that back - I have used them exactly like I would use a standard pepper) but never in an application like this. I had thought about using some in a rice dish similar to what you have here. Sometimes when using standard size peppers the recipe calls for heating the peppers in the oven to blister the skin and then putting them in a glass bowl and covering with plastic wrap - and then peeling the skin off. I see that your recipe doesn't call for that (yay! because, personally I find that to be a pain). Anyway, all of that to say - the skins aren't noticeable on the small peppers? If not - I just saw a pretty big bag of these at the store for a very reasonable price and I might just head right on back there. Thanks!!! Wendi
Flavour & Savour
Hi Wendi,
I find that the mini peppers have tender skins if they're fresh and there is no need to peel them. Hope you get a chance to make these!
Jackie
YUM YUM YUM YUM. No need to say more.
Flavour & Savour
🙂 Love these little things!