Stuffed Pepper (Plnená Paprika)
Ingredients: 4 or 5 peppers, 2lbs ground beef, 1 cup rice, 1 jar tomato sauce, 1 onion, oil, flour, black pepper, paprika, knedľa, parsley, marjoram
Prep time: 1hr 15 minutes
Recipe:
Here is the recipe for a Slovak stuffed pepper dish. It is similar to the what is eaten in America, with the exception that it’s served with a side of knedľa (steamed dumpling). You can substitute rice or potatoes if you don’t have these dumplings.
Start by cleaning peppers by removing seeds and the “veins”. You can use either sweet bell peppers or spicy ones.
Fry finely diced onion in a big greased pot until the onion turns pink. Add little bit of flour to thicken the mixture (this is called “zápražka”). Add water and let boil. Next add salt, pepper, paprika, and any additional seasoning to taste, such marjoram and parsley. Finally add one large jar of tomato sauce.
In the meantime, mix together ground beef, one egg, rice, salt, black pepper and paprika. Some people prefer to use cooked rice, but there is no need to cook it ahead of time. The rice will cook with the beef.
Stuff the peppers with the meat and rice mixture.
Any leftover mixture can be formed into balls to make meat balls. Add everything to the sauce, and cook until rice gets soft. This will take about 45 minutes.
Serve with a steamed dumpling (knedľa).
When I make these I use V-8 Tomato juice and it gives it a wonderful flavor…I also put cabbage leaves on top of my baking dish to avoid having the peppers dry out too much…also shred some cabbage into the sauce…
This is the favorite meal of my relative Sona from Rimavska Sobota, Slovakia. This is how we me made this dish last week. I am sure they are other recipes with little different ingredients.
It would be great to learn them. Is there somebody who would like to share some ides?
Hello Katarina, My name is Donna and I’m part Slovak and part Hungarian. I found your post today when I was looking for a good recipe for stuffed peppers. You mentioned that you fix those for your relative from Rimavska Sobota, Slovakia. That is where my grandmother was from. It’s a small world isn’t it. I’ve been researching my ancestry so it was very interesting to me to see your post. I hope you will see this soon as I would love to hear from you. Thank you and take care, Donna
I love stuffed peppers. I make them at least once a month. Here is a slight difference (as that’s how my mom madedt) I use ground pork (not beef) and I use “semi cooked” rice not cooked all the way but not raw.
The rest is the same 🙂
You can use only ground pork or half and half pork and beef.
This is one of my favourite meal. I prefer to eat it with tomato but bread is also great.
Hello!
I was wondering if there is any way to adapt these recipes to make them for someone who is vegetarian. Is there any specific type of vegetable that is preferred?
I was vegetarian for a while and found that rice is a great substitute for any ground meat. If it was me, I’d probably just use all rice or some other grain like quinoa. Of course, there is always “fake meat” out there, too. You know, Tofurky and whatnot.
BTW, when I was vegetarian I got such a hard time from both sets of grandparents! I’m half Czech and half Italian: in my experience, both nationalities view eating well as a very central part of day-to-day life. Frozen Boca burger? That’s blasphemy!
I saute mushrooms. Set aside. Then saute chopped colored peppers and onions together until soft. Mix all together with 1/2 can mushroom soup, 1/2 can tomato soup and 1/2 cup raw rice. Add black pepper, basil. No salt since canned soup has salt!! ( I don’t use cooked rice because I don’t want to end up with mushy rice.) Stuff peppers. Top peppers with mixture of liquid: I use can of diced tomatoes, the rest of canned soup and enough water to equal liquid needed for rice to cook properly. If you like cheese, add grated cheese to top for last 10 min. of baking. My veg. daughte loves these.
we use Campbells tomato soup in the can without diluting it, It would a sin to make them or stuffed cabbage without a helping of caraway seeds. We froze 8 trays of them last fall when the peppers came out of the garden and just finished the last tray. I am happy to get correct spelling for the many foods from my grandmother and mother that are in six old hand written composition books which I know are incorrect spelling bu my mother.
My Nana used raisins and nutmeg. ?
Hello,
It is not listed on how much water to use and the egg is not listed as one of the ingredients!
I am new to your website and am so glad I found it. I was trying to decipher my Mom’s [Czech) written, 70 year old recipe’s.
My Slovak and my German grandmothers seldom gave out their recipes. They weren’t being secretive. They didn’t work from recipes!
When I phoned my Grandma Hrinya decades ago to ask how much water to add to my rice and meat mix, she simply said, “Sweetie, just add water until it feels gooshy.”
That didn’t make a lot of sense until I started slowly adding water. Then like a great revelation it became “gooshy.” I’ve been doing that for almost fifty years and it’s worked every time.
My grandmas treated cooking as art not science (except for baking which used strict adherence to recipes.) They were creative, innovative and an inspiration.
I am Slovak buy blood and heart, many generations!
Live in Canada now, 1st generation Canadian, with many tried,tested and true recipes on authentic Slovak food, but no recipes on stuffed green peppers from my ancestors?
Was looking for an authentic recipe.
Original recipe as you posted is OUTSTANDING!, no need to substitute basil? (Seriously, Are we Italian, no!, WE ARE SLOVAKS!) Campbell’s?, mushrooms?, or any other “canned” North American “lazy” method.
Caraway? Cannot argue! Thank you for this suggestion!
Quinoa, fake meat? Seriously???
Cabbage? This is a recipe for STUFFED PEPPERS NOT cabbage rolls!
Raisins and Nutmeg??? Are you making a Christmas Cake or Stuffed Peppers made the Slovakian way?
What you posted is trusted, true, original and authentic!
Simple!!! Salt, Pepper, Paprika, Marjoram is simple and true!
Thank you!
Looking forward to a taste of home!!!
PS: Knedl’a? My mother used to make these diligently, I simply cannot? Does anyone know where I can purchase these pre-made?
My ex-husband and his mom (Vychodniari) insist on roasting the peppers in the oven first for about half an hour, then adding them to the tomato pretlak sauce.
I quite like it this way, as it sweetens the peppers in a way that you don’t get just from cooking them in the sauce. Does anyone know if this is an easterner thing, or just my ex’s weird family???