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Spiced Couscous Stuffed Peppers

Prep Time:30 minutes Cook Time: 45 minutes Servings: 4 minutes

While I enjoy a classic dish of peppers stuffed with hashweh, a spiced ground beef dish, there are plenty of other traditional options that don’t use meat at all. A roasted stuffed vegetable is so central to regional Mediterranean cooking, and there’s something deeply satisfying about making a delicious pilaf-style filling of couscous and lentils to tuck inside juicy bell peppers. To take things up a notch, I drizzle everything with a fresh cucumber yogurt sauce. These spiced stuffed peppers are flavorful, filling little packages that will make any plant or meat eater happy. Excerpted from THE FEEL GOOD FOODIE COOKBOOK by Yumna Jawad. Copyright © 2024 by Yumna Jawad. Used by permission of Rodale Books, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

Ingredients:
  • olive oil for coating
  • 1/2 cup brown lentils, rinsed and drained
  • 1/2 cup fine couscous
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt, divided
  • 1 (7-ounce) jar oil-packed julienned sun-dried tomatoes, oil reserved
  • 1/2 cup slivered almonds
  • 1/3 cup crumbled feta cheese
  • 4 green onions (whites and greens), chopped
  • 2 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1 teaspoon ground cumin
  • 1 teaspoon dried thyme
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground pepper, divided
  • 4 bell peppers, halved lengthwise and seeded
Directions:
  1. Preheat the oven to 375°F. Coat a 9-by-13-inch baking dish with oil.
  2. In a large saucepan, bring 1 1/2 cups of water to a boil over high heat. Add the lentils and return to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium-low, cover the saucepan with a lid, and cook for 15 minutes.
  3. Add the couscous and 1/4 teaspoon of the salt to the lentils, cover the saucepan once more, and cook, allowing the couscous to absorb all of the remaining liquid and become plump, about 10 minutes. Remove the saucepan from the heat and rest, covered, for 5 minutes longer. Fluff the mixture with a fork.
  4. Add the tomatoes and 2 tablespoons of the reserved tomato oil along with the almonds, feta, green onions, garlic, cumin, thyme, the remaining 1/4 teaspoon of salt, and the pepper. Using the fork, stir to combine.
  5. Arrange the bell peppers cut-side up in the prepared baking dish. It’s OK if they look crowded—the peppers will shrink as they roast. Divide the lentil-couscous stuffing between the 8 bell-pepper boats.
  6. Cover the baking dish tightly with foil and bake for 30 minutes. Remove the foil and continue to bake the peppers, uncovered, until tender, 10 to 15 minutes longer.
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