Amelia Freer recipe: stuffed peppers with chilli

This hearty and warming vegan chilli filling is a great recipe to have up your sleeve for those nights when you need a warming, healthy meal. It works well as a standalone dish too – just load up a bowl and add a handful of seasonal greens, or pour it over some brown rice for a filling supper after a long, blustery day out.

It’s also very easy to make a big batch of and freeze in portions, so you could always double up the quantities and put some away for another day (which will also prevent you from being left with half a tin of beans looking sad in the fridge!).

Ingredients

1 large red or yellow pepper
1 teaspoon light olive oil

FOR THE CHILLI
1 teaspoon coconut oil or light olive oil
½ a small red onion, peeled and sliced
1 clove of garlic, peeled and sliced
1 small stick of celery, diced
½ red chilli, diced
100g sweet potatoes, peeled and diced into 1-2cm pieces
1 teaspoon ground cumin and 1 teaspoon ground coriander
½ teaspoon paprika
a small bunch of fresh coriander, stems finely chopped, leaves reserved
125ml water
½ a 400g tin of black beans or kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1 tablespoons tomato purée
1 teaspoon tamari or coconut aminos
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

TO SERVE
1 handful of salad leaves of your choice

Method

Preheat the oven to 200°C/180°C fan/gas 6.

Heat the coconut or olive oil in a saucepan and sauté the onion, garlic, celery, chilli and sweet potatoes for 5 minutes, then stir in the ground cumin and ground coriander, paprika and coriander stalks until everything is well coated.

Add the water and cover with a tightly fitting lid. Turn the heat down to its lowest setting and cook for 25 – 30 minutes, stirring occasionally to stop it sticking.

Meanwhile, cut the pepper in half straight through the stalk and carefully take out the seeds and pithy white bits from inside. Pour ½ teaspoon of olive oil inside each half pepper and use your hands rub this all over both sides. Place on a baking tray, skin side down, and put into the oven for 12 – 15 minutes, to soften. Remove from the oven when the peppers are soft and slightly caramelized around the edges, and set to one side.

After the filling has had 25 – 30 minutes simmering, add the beans, tomato purée and tamari. You may need to add another splash of water if it looks dry, although you are aiming for quite a thick texture. Bring back to a simmer for another 5 – 6 minutes, to warm the beans through. Stir in half the coriander leaves, then taste and adjust the seasoning as necessary.

Spoon the mixture into your prepared pepper halves, sprinkle with the remaining coriander leaves and serve over a bed of salad leaves of your choice.

Recipe from Nourish & Glow: The 10-Day Plan by Amelia Freer published by Michael Joseph, 2017, £16.99.  Buy online here .

Photography credit: Susan Bell, 2017.