Our bell pepper and zucchini crop runneth over.  We have tons of peppers, or maybe more appropriately, we have pecks and pecks and pecks of peppers flooding from our garden!  We also have more zucchini than I know what to do with and don’t forget our chickens which means we have a daily supply of fresh EGGS!  So, what better thing to do than marry it all together? I took onions, pancetta, our zucchini, and some portobello mushrooms; stuffed some roasted bells with this mixture, added an egg, and baked them in the oven. The result? Beautiful little eggs in a bell pepper nest. Delicious and delightful not to mention fun!  This is more of a concept than an actual “recipe” so get creative and most importantly; enjoy!
Baked Eggs in a Bell (Pepper)
4 red or yellow bell peppers cut in half lengthwise and seeds removed (leave the green stem intact if desired for a pretty finish)
1 cup diced zucchini
1 cup diced yellow onion
1 cup diced portobello mushrooms
2 garlic cloves, minced
6 oz cubed pancetta
Cooking fat of your choice (we used about 2 tablespoons of duck fat)
8 eggs
Sea salt and black pepper to taste
Optional: cherry tomatos cut in half and fresh basil for garnish
1. Preheat oven to 375.
2. Place bell pepper halves on a baking sheet and roast in the oven for 15-20 minutes.
3. Meanwhile, saute the pancetta and onions together in the duck fat over medium to medium high heat until the onions start to soften and the pancetta begins to crisp. Add the minced garlic, zucchini and mushrooms and saute until the zucchini are al dente.
4. When the bell peppers are out of the oven, drain any moisture from the inside that appeared after roasting, and stuff each bell pepper half with a large scoop of the sautéed pancetta and veggie mixture.
5. If your bell peppers are BIG you can crack 2 eggs per bell pepper half on top of the stuffing. Â Our bells were small (homegrown babies) so we only used one egg per bell pepper half.
6. Place the stuffed bells in a large casserole dish, cover with foil and bake at 375 for 30-40 minutes or until the egg whites are set. Â Check after 20 minutes because the heat of your oven may be different than mine.
7. OPTIONAL – top with fresh torn basil leaves and cherry tomato halves.
How many calories?
Who cares ?
Lol
YUM! Definitely trying these.
Looks great! And my kids will love using the peppers as bowls.
I am so excited for yet another new recipe! I can’t wait to try!
That looks amazing!!
looks incredible! I bet it would also be good if you used a hollowed out tomato instead of the pepper… I have LOADS of tomatoes!
Just made these for brunch today…….absolutely delicious!!!!
What a great idea! Strangely, I don’t love peppers, but eating them this way totally appeals to me.
Just made this…… DELICIOUS!!!
Me too! and I second that….Delicious!
I love tomatoes and added them but IMO, they weren’t a good fit for this recipe. The flavor just didn’t meld quite right. Everything else was spot on. I recommend leaving the stems as shown in the pic. We did not and had trouble with the eggs pouring out that end.
I LOVE IT! such a good recipe for the home grown pepper. I live in Seattle and my pep’s are so small and I have lots of sweet cherry tomatoes. Can’t wait to try this!
Thanks Sara!
Nice recipe and looking healthy and tasty. I am sure that there will be no more calories in this recipe. Anyway great sharing.
Fantastic to find a recipe for stuffed bell peppers that doesn’t involve rice! I think that the bacon is the magic in this recipe. You can never go wrong with bacon and they’re a perfect complement to the mushrooms.
Peppers and Eggs! Two of my favorite foods. Peppers are also pretty good for boosting your metabolism up a little bit. I’m going to try to make this sometime this week.
I am so excited to go eat these; mine are about to come out of the oven. I added pine nuts to the sauteed mixture; it’s so delicious! I may have over filled my peppers (more is better, right?), and my eggs were difficult to keep in there. So I recommend buying large peppers, and I found that creating a little valley in the center of the filling kept my eggs in place. And there goes my timer! Thanks so much for this fun recipe!
Ohhhh, I like the idea of the pine nuts! Will do that for sure next time. Hope they were delicious!!
I just popped these in the oven. I set the peppers on a muffin tin to stop them from rolling around-can’t wait to try them!
This looks delicious, thanks!
Wow… I have a hard time finding a variety of paleo style breakfast meals that my wife and I enjoy, but this is definitely one to use more often, to mix it up. I’m looking forward to trying this recipe!
I LOVE this recipe!!! So much that tried making a batch of the filling and filled an ice cube tray. I squished the filling into each little “cube” so there’d be lots and froze them…crossing my fingers that it would work. Believe it or not they came out very easily and intact. I put them all into a little ziplok bag and use them for omelettes also. I often will prebake a couple of peppers to have in the fridge too. So in the morning all I do is grab the pre-roasted pepper, a couple of the “ice cubes”, defrost them for a minute in the microwave and breakfast is ready in about 20 minutes tops (with a toaster oven). this has become one of my favourite recipes of all since switching to paleo.
What a fabulous idea! I was just thinking about how I could make this recipe work for me (I cook only for one), so this will be a boon. Thanks!
Awesome Shelda, enjoy!
How do they taste if you make them the night before and microwave the next day? I have made a stuffed bellpepper dinner and had it for lunch the next day and the bell pepper was kind of mushy, but I work to early to make anything before I leave. Thanks in advance.
The reheat well, the bell pepper doesn’t get overly mushy unless you overcook it initially!
This is a fantastic idea! I made the choice to begin eating paleo yesterday and have made it the first day. I was really dreading finding paleo breakfast options, but these are all wonderful! I am so happy I found your blog!!! I can’t wait to try this! Thanks for making it so easy!!!
Is it ok to use green and orange peppers? I see that you specifically typed red or yellow. Is there a reason? Thank you!
You can absolutely use green and orange! I didn’t use green ones only because I like the sweeter taste of the red and yellow peppers, (and orange ones for that matter)!
So, I just tried this fabulous recipe! Wow! It turned out wonderful. I had people over for dinner, and they were a big hit. I added some sausage, squash, and tomatoes to the mix and they are to die for. Thank you for this! I will be making it many more times. 🙂
thank you for posting this wonderful “concept” just made it for breakfast munching on it now so delicious great idea!! substituted where I didn’t have pancetta or garlic used a little garlic powder and some veggie “ground meat” great way to use up some of those veggies from the garden before they go bad
Yummo! Looks delicious.
Do the yolks still remain liquid?
If you watch them closely, they should be still runny! I have admittedly overcooked these a few times and have ended up with over medium eggs ( a bit cooked around the edges of the yolk and soft still in the middle) but yes, they should be still runny. 🙂
I made these today, and will be making them again. I put chopped ham, fresh herbs and onion in the pepper before the egg, and I’m pretty sure most things could work. A great way to use leftovers!
What about substituting eggplant instead of bellpepper ? Going to make this a side to parm crusted chicken.
I think it’s a great idea! Haven’t tried it myself but I’m sure it will be delicious. Let me know how it turns out!
Do you have a substitute for Pancetta? It is hard to find in the swampland of central Florida! Thanks
you can use ham or bacon! 🙂
I care so how many calories?
Just made this an hour ago! I used leftover taco meat as the base! Soooo good. Next time I will just have to watch it a little more closely because my yolks were definitely overcooked. But still yummy!