Bell peppers stuffed with gochujang-spiced ground beef and rice, baked until tender and lightly charred.
Stuffed peppers aren't a traditional Korean dish, but the flavors that fill them here — gochujang, garlic, sesame oil, soy sauce — are straight out of a Korean home kitchen's everyday seasoning shelf, the same combination used in bulgogi marinade and japchae. Ground beef is cooked down with those seasonings until it's deeply savory, mixed with rice for body, then packed into halved peppers and baked until the peppers soften and blister slightly at the edges.\n\nThe technique that makes the difference is browning the beef hard before adding the gochujang, so the meat develops real fond in the pan instead of just simmering in sauce. That browned base gets deglazed with a splash of soy sauce and water, which the rice then absorbs as it mixes in, so every bite of filling is seasoned all the way through rather than just on the surface.\n\nFinish with a scatter of scallions and sesame seeds right before serving — the color and crunch matter as much as the seasoning underneath.
Serves 4
Preheat oven to 400°F (200°C). Arrange halved peppers cut-side up in a baking dish and roast 10 minutes to soften slightly before filling.
Heat oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. Add onion and cook 4 minutes, then add beef and cook, breaking it apart, until deeply browned, about 7 minutes.
Add garlic and cook 30 seconds, then stir in gochujang, soy sauce and brown sugar. Cook 2 minutes until the sauce coats the beef and smells caramelized rather than raw.
Let the beef sit undisturbed for 60-90 seconds at a time while browning — constant stirring steams it instead of building a crust.
Off the heat, stir the cooked rice into the beef mixture until evenly coated. Spoon the filling generously into the roasted pepper halves, mounding it on top.
Drizzle sesame oil over the filled peppers and bake 20-25 minutes until the peppers are tender and the edges are lightly charred.
Top with scallions and sesame seeds just before serving.
Pre-roasting the peppers for 10 minutes before stuffing keeps them from being crunchy-raw in the center after the shorter final bake.
Use 80/20 ground beef — leaner meat dries out in the oven and the peppers end up tasting flat.
Taste the filling before stuffing the peppers; it's much easier to adjust salt and heat in the pan than after everything is baked.
Use ground pork or a beef-pork blend for a richer, slightly sweeter filling.
Top with a slice of mozzarella or a sprinkle of shredded cheese for the last 5 minutes of baking for a fusion twist.
Swap the rice for cooked quinoa or cauliflower rice for a lower-carb version.
Refrigerate in an airtight container for up to 3 days. Reheat covered in the oven at 350°F (175°C) for 15 minutes, or microwave until warmed through.
Stuffed peppers exist across many cuisines, but this version borrows its seasoning base directly from Korean bulgogi and gochujang-glazed dishes that are staples of everyday Korean cooking. It reflects a common home-kitchen habit of applying a familiar sauce profile to a Western format like stuffed peppers.
Yes — cook the beef filling up to 2 days ahead and refrigerate it separately, then stuff and bake the peppers fresh so they don't turn watery.
Pre-roasting them before stuffing is the fix — peppers that go into the oven raw and only bake for 20-25 minutes with filling often stay too crisp.
Yes, though add an extra teaspoon of sesame oil since turkey is leaner and the filling can taste dry without it.
Per serving (380g / 13.4 oz) · 4 servings total
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