Bell Pepper with Ground Beef from the Oven
Everything starts in one pan — onion, garlic, carrot, and ground beef with Italian seasoning — and finishes inside bell pepper halves with melted cheese on top. The oven handles the last 30 minutes.
363 calories and 32g of protein from eight everyday ingredients, ready in 35 minutes.
Everything starts in one pan — onion, garlic, carrot, and ground beef with Italian seasoning — and finishes inside bell pepper halves with melted cheese on top. The oven handles the last 30 minutes.
363 calories and 32g of protein from eight everyday ingredients, ready in 35 minutes.
Ingredients
- onion 0.25
- garlic 1 clove
- carrot 1
- olive oil 0.5 tablespoon
- 96% lean ground beef 4 ounces
- Italian seasoning 2 teaspoons
- bell pepper 1
- grated cheese 1 ounce
Method
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Preheat the oven to 370°F (190°C).
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Finely chop the onion and mince the garlic. Dice the carrot into small cubes.
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Heat the oil in a pan and sauté the onion until translucent. Add the garlic and carrot and cook for 2 minutes. Add the ground beef and Italian seasoning. Cook until the meat is browned.
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Meanwhile, cut the bell pepper in half and remove the seeds.
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Place the bell pepper halves in a baking dish. Fill them with the ground beef mixture and sprinkle shredded cheese on top. Bake for about 30 minutes.
Scoop out the white ribs inside the bell pepper along with the seeds. Those ribs turn bitter during the long bake and can overpower the seasoned filling.
Behind this recipe
Can I use regular ground beef instead of 96% lean?
You can, but the macros shift. Regular 80/20 ground beef carries roughly three times the fat per serving. With 96% lean, this recipe lands at 20g of fat total. Switch to 80/20 and that number climbs toward 35-40g. Protein stays similar either way.
How do I stop the bell pepper halves from tipping in the dish?
Slice a thin sliver off the rounded bottom of each half so it sits flat. Small fix, but it keeps the filling from spilling during the 30-minute bake.
Is 32g of protein from one meal actually useful, or does the body waste some of it?
Research has challenged the old idea that your body caps out at 20-30g per meal. A systematic review covering hundreds of participants found no hard ceiling where protein utilization suddenly stops. The body slows digestion and extends absorption, pulling amino acids from the meal for hours. 32g from ground beef is well within what the evidence supports.
Read the full evidence review
