Portuguese Style Stuffed Peppers

April 6, 2016April 6, 20162 Comments

Stuffed peppers are a meal all in themselves. They have protein, grain and vegetable all in one perfect package. Adding in the chouriço, portuguese ground pepper (pimenta moida) and Portuguese Allspice really bring it into “Portuguese Style” territory!

These are great for a weeknight meal, to bring in to work for lunch or make some of the stuffing, freeze in an airtight bag and stuff fresh peppers whenever you get the inkling!

I like the red, orange and yellow peppers myself because they are sweeter, but if you prefer green, go ahead and use green!

Cut each pepper in half lengthwise. This will later lead to a more crispy top on your stuffing.

Seed the peppers removing as much of the white pith as you can.

Dice up a medium onion.

Fresh parsley is important here.

Chop it up.

Use one large can of plain tomato sauce. reserving about 1/3 of it for topping the peppers before they go into the oven.

The meat for this stuffing is made up of half ground beef and half chouriço.

Add in the onion.

Brown everything together in the skillet.

Once browned, add in 2/3 of the can of sauce.

Now add in a couple of cups of cooked white rice. If you prefer brown rice here, that’s fine, just be sure it is thoroughly cooked, this is not the time for aldente anything.

Add in Pimenta Moida.

Add in some salt and pepper to taste and your stuffing is ready!

Select a baking dish that will comfortably fit the number of peppers you are looking to bake without being too tight.

Grease the baking dish with some oil.

Place your peppers with the cut side up on your baking dish ready for stuffing.

Stuff each pepper 1 and a half times its size so that it has a nice rounded top of stuffing.

Cover with some plain sauce just to keep the stuffing moist.

Portuguese Stuffed Peppers

Serves 4-6

Ingredients:

2-3 bell peppers, cut in half and seeded

1 lb. ground beef

1 lb. ground chouriço

1 medium onion, chopped

2 cups cooked rice

1 can tomato sauce

2 Tbs. parsley, chopped

1 Tbs. Pimenta Moida (ground pepper)

1/2 tsp. Portuguese Allspice

salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Pre-heat oven to 350°F.

Brown ground beef, ground chouriço and onion in a skillet over medium heat. Drain if there is an excess of fat (a little fat is ok). Add in Pimenta Moida, parsley and a little salt and pepper (don’t over do it here) and 2/3 can of tomato sauce. Stir. Add in cooked rice. Stir.

Stuff filling into peppers and place in an oiled baking dish. Top stuffed peppers with remaining 1/3 can of tomato sauce. Bake for 30 minutes until pepper has cooked through. Serve hot.

***Gluten-free

Lisa’s Sausage Stuffed Jalapeños

October 2, 2015October 2, 2015

Today is a very special day! It’s my 100th post here on thePortugueseAmericanMom.com! So in honor of that I thought I would highlight one of my very favorite party aps to celebrate! One of my very best girlfriend’s, Lisa, makes these for me whenever there is a party to be had. She came over last Sunday with her husband Carlos and her daughter Kaedence for the football game and we had our selves some good old-fashioned “home-gating”. And I asked, that instead of her making these for me at home, she make them here so I could document the process and share it with you all! And so she did!

They are a super simple and incredibly flavorful and delicious naturally gluten-free appetizer made with just 5 ingredients! One thing that Lisa asked that I stress and I will stress it in the tutorial as well is to please be sure to have surgical gloves before attempting this recipe. You will be working with very hot peppers and will need to protect yourself from the oils in the pepper. Once done and the peppers are in the oven, remove the gloves directly into the trash and thoroughly wash your hands with soap and water to ensure you got it all.

Let me show you how she does it!

Here are all your ingredients! Yep, that’s it, just 4! (plus olive oil for the pan, so five if we are technical)

Mince your onion.

Heat up some olive oil over medium heat.

Sautée the onions.

Split each Italian Sausage so you can remove the casing. Lisa uses hot Italian sausage and we all love them that way… but if you want to reduce the heat due to the already super hot jalapeño peppers, you could use mild Italian sausage here.

Remove the casing.

This is what they look like without the casing.

Add in the sausage.

Lisa asked me for not only a wooden spoon to mix, but also a potato masher to make sure it all gets broken down!

Brown up all of the sausage meat.

Strain out any grease. There wasn’t too much in this batch.

Return the sausage to the skillet and add in a bar of room temperature cream cheese.

Then work the cream cheese into the sausage meat.

Once most of the cream cheese it distributed, you can continue to work it with a wooden spoon.

Once the cream cheese is all distributed well, turn off the burner and let cool for a minute or two.

Preparing the peppers: You should have time to prepare the peppers while the sausage is cooking, but to keep things simple, I am keeping that separate…

Before we get into the pepper part, I need to mention these handy-dandy surgical gloves again… Lisa says, if you don’t have these, don’t make this dish! So, I would gather they are imperative.

Split the peppers all in half.

Place them into a bowl as you go.

You need to remove the seeds and connective tissue from the inside of each pepper. This is Lisa's technique. Hold firmly an scrape from the top down with your thumb.

You need to remove the seeds and connective tissue from the inside of each pepper. This is Lisa’s technique. Hold firmly and scrape from the top down with your thumb.

Lisa mentioned that the you should look for fatter peppers so they have more stuffing room.

You want to try to get as many of the seeds out to start off with as possible, but you have to go through 18-20 peppers, so you don’t want to spend too much time on it.

Now the peppers need to be washed, but this is more of a technique to get the remaining seeds out.

Fill the bowl with water and let the seeds float around in the water.

Then let them all just flow out in the water. Repeat this process a couple of times until you are satisfied.

Next, take a teaspoon and stuff each.

You want to firmly press in, but build up a little mound at the same time.

This is what you should have.

Line them on a parchment lined rimmed cookie sheet. Pop them in the oven at 350°F for about 30-50 mins or so… but check in on them every 10 mins or so after that first 30 mins. The cooking time will depend on how big your peppers are.

This is what you need to see before you take them out of the oven… They are all a nice golden brown with some crispiness on top.

Lisa’s Sausage Stuffed Jalapeños

Serving size: 10

18-20 plump jalapeños, halved and seeded

1 bar cream cheese, room temperature

1 medium onion, minced

1 package hot Italian Sausage, casing removed

1-2 Tbs. olive oil

Directions: Pre-heat oven to 350°F. Sautée the onion in olive oil in a skillet set over medium heat. Add in the sausage. With a wooden spoon and a potato masher, work the meat down into the onions and brown. Once browned, drain fat. Return meat to skillet and add in cream cheese. Again, work in the cream cheese using a wooden spoon and potato masher. Once the cream cheese is worked in, turn off heat and set aside to cool for a moment or two.

Stuff the ingredients into the prepared peppers. Line a rimmed cookie sheet or baking dish with parchment paper and line up the stuffed peppers, stuffing facing up. Bake for 30-50 minutes, check on them every 10 minutes after the 30 minutes. They will be done when they are golden brown. Allow to cool on pan for about 10 minutes before moving to a serving tray. Serve warm or room temperature. Enjoy!

*Note – This is a gluten-free recipe, but as always, check your ingredients in the Italian Sausage.

*Note – This is a low-carb recipe

5 Bean CrockPot Chili

September 25, 2015September 27, 2015

If you’re looking for something to feed a crowd, won’t break the bank and is easy to prepare, but will still get people super excited this Sunday, 5 Bean CrockPot Chili is the way to go! The weather is cooling down and people are starting their Sunday ritual of gathering around that screen. In homes across America kitchen counter tops start filling with bowls of chips, platters of bite size food and CrockPots full of delicious comfort foods. Chili is at the top of the list in many a home… Afterall football and chili go hand in hand.

Whether you are taking this over to a friend’s house for the game, packing it up for tailgating or serving it up on a snow day this winter… you need to remember to always pick up some fixin’s to add on top! No good chili is complete without the fixin’s…

Let’s get started!

Here is just about everything you will need for this yummy Chili.

Start off by adding the full bottle of beer into your slow cooker. If you can’t have beer, substitute with some beef stock… one 12oz. can will do it.

Salt and pepper! On the left you see kosher salt. On the right one dry Ancho Chili. This gives the chili a real depth of flavor.

Open up your Ancho and remove some of the seeds, it has a lot of seeds, they aren’t all needed here.

You want to rehydrate the pepper in the beer while you prepare the other ingredients.

Here are your dry spices… You are going to add these in with your Ancho so that they can also have a couple minutes to rehydrate.

These measurements don’t need to be exact… although I will list exact measurements in the recipe down below… Here is your cumin.

Cayenne pepper… I put in just a big pinch of this because of cooking for a mixed crowd. With chili I would prefer to supply hot sauce as a topping than have someone not be able to enjoy it because it is too hot for their palate, including my kids.

Smoked paprika is really nice here. (sorry for the fuzziness, don’t know what happened there!)

And last but definitely not least, the chili powder… necessary for any chili!

So your pot should look like this…

Turn your slow cooker to high.

I made Shepard’s pie earlier in the week and browned up a bunch of ground beef… set half of it aside and made less work for myself on this particular Sunday… If you have one of those cool slow cookers that allows you to brown meat or you use my method of having pre-cooked ground beef, then this meal becomes a one pot meal! If not, you should brown up some ground beef in a skillet and add it in here.

Add in some kosher salt.

Mix everything in together and move on to preparing your fresh ingredients.

Dice up your onions.

In this method, it is not necessary to pre cook your onions, however if you are browning your meat same day, it would not hurt to add these into your skillet… But as you can see, I did not turn on my stove for this recipe.

Here is where you control the heat in this dish… You can choose to leave the seeds in your pepper which will significantly increase the heat level in this dish… I was making the chili for a mixed crowd, so I decided to keep the heat low and remove the seeds.

Peel some garlic… no need to chop.

Add in jalapeno and garlic.

I found this bell pepper, isn’t he cute? You’ll want to cut it in half, remove the seeds and stem and chop it up.

From here on you are literally just dumping ingredients in till your slow cooker is all filled up! Two cans of diced tomatoes.

Get a good strainer set over a sink and pour each can of beans in one at a time.

Start by rinsing your Pinto Beans.

Next your cannellini… And this is meant to go in no particular order. Also, you can use whichever beans you like… I chose the ones I chose for a couple of reasons though… I like the creaminess of Pinto and Cannellini… I also like the variety in color.

Black beans are chosen for both color and flavor and they are a very traditional addition to Mexican foods of all kinds.

Add all these into the slow cooker. (It’s already starting to look pretty!)

We are using two kinds of kidney beans, both for color and tradition.

I also like the large red kidney beans here.

Add the kidney beans in and that’s the final addition!

Now we mix… So pretty!

Once everything is well mixed in, cover and cook on high for 8 hours… That’s it.

At this point, check for salt and spice… Add more kosher salt if needed. If you feel it needs more spice add in either a few dashes of hot sauce or cayenne pepper.I would be remiss if I didn’t point out the necessary toppings to this warm bowl of goodness!

You need to have some sour cream at the ready, some cheddar cheese, and some tortilla chips… I also like to have chopped scallions and hot sauce available for people.

And there you have it, Enjoy!

I know my husband did!

5 Bean CrockPot Chili

(serves 8-10 or more – great for a party)

1 1/4 lbs ground beef, browned

2 cans diced tomatoes

1 can Pinto beans

1 can Cannellini beans

1 can Black beans

1 can Small Red Kidney beans

1 can Large Red Kidney beans

2 medium onions, diced

1 red bell pepper, seeded and diced

1 jalapeno pepper, seeded and diced

1 dry Ancho chili pepper, seeded

1 bottle Mexican beer

1 clove garlic, crushed and peeled

1 Tbs. kosher salt, plus more to taste

2 Tbs. Chili powder

2 Tbs. Smoked Paprika

1 Tbs. Cumin

1 tsp. Cayenne pepper

Directions:

Soak dry spices including Ancho chili pepper in beer in the slow cooker. Add in all other ingredients. Mix and turn on high for 8 hours.

Fixin’s:

Sour Cream

Tortilla chips

shredded cheddar cheese

chopped scallions (optional)

sliced black olives (optional)

hot sauce

*note – With the swap out of beer for either gluten-free beer or beef stock, this is a completely gluten-free recipe.

Easy 3 Layer Dip

September 11, 2015September 11, 2015

Are you ready for some footballlllll???? We are! With the start of football season kicking off this weekend, I thought it only appropriate to post a fun, quick, tasty and super easy dip to take along to any football party or tailgating you might be doing! I have been making this dip for years and I can tell you from personal experience, it is almost addicting! Just three simple layers, this is a no-bake recipe that will have them asking for more each time you come out to a party!

Ready in under 5 minutes, this dip is perfect for the busy mom or dad on the run! It also keeps really well and can be made hours before the party and kept covered in the fridge! Take it out about an hour before you are ready to serve, grab a bag of tortilla chips and you’re good to go!

Add one bar of softened cream cheese to a mixing bowl.

To the cream cheese, add in a half a cup of sour cream. I used to do this recipe without this ingredient, so if you don’t have any on hand, don’t worry about it, but I find that it really helps with texture and softens this layer up a bit, which in turn helps get the dip on the chip.

I have put taco seasoning recipes up in different posts before, if you have some of that already made, then just add in 3 Tbs. of that, if not, just grab a packet of pre-made taco seasoning and add it in. I told you this would be quick and easy!

With these three ingredients in the bowl, whip together. I used my electric mixer, about 45 seconds on high did it just perfect. If you don’t have a mixer, it may take you a minute and a half to mix with a wooden spoon.

Once your mix is complete, scoop it out into your serving dish.

I usually use a pie plate for this, but today I had a pretty blue casserole dish at the ready, so I used that. I spread an even layer at the bottom.

Again, I told you this would be quick and easy. Grab your favorite salsa, hot and spicy, medium or mild, you know your crowd, use what you like… We like medium. I also like the body that the chunky variety gives. And hey if you already have a saucy salsa home-made and ready, go ahead and use it! Spread your salsa evenly to create your second layer.

Now add on some cheese, spread evenly to create your third and final layer. If you are a regular on this blog, you know that I almost always shred my own cheese, but quick and easy is the name of the game here today, so some pre-shredded is how I’m going today. Plus I find that when leaving the pre-shredded stuff exposed to air it holds up a bit better than freshly shredded. Please note that if you are trying to keep this gluten-free, you really need to check your labels because some company’s coat the cheese in flour to preserve.

Spread your cheese over your layer of salsa.

I like to add a couple of toppings to this dip. This is completely optional, so I don’t count it as a layer. The first topping I add is a small can of drained pre-sliced black olives.

The second and final topping I like to add is jalapeno. Again, this is totally optional.

I slice it up super thin.

Then spread about half a pepper’s worth of slices around the top.

Serve with tortilla chips.

Recipe for Easy 3 Layer Dip:

(serves 10-12)

1 bar cream cheese

1/2 cup sour cream

1 packet taco seasoning

1 1/2 cups ready-made salsa

1 1/2 – 2 cups shredded cheddar cheese

1/2 diced jalapeno (optional)

10 black olives, sliced (optional)

Directions:

In a mixing bowl, whip together cream cheese, sour cream and taco seasoning. Spread mixture into a pie plate or small casserole dish. Add an even layer of jarred salsa. Add an even layer of shredded cheese. Top with olives and jalapeno.

*Note – This recipe is Gluten-free as long as the specific brands used are gluten-free.

Sausage Stuffed Peppers

August 21, 2015August 21, 2015

Bell peppers and I have had a tumultuous past. As a kid I hated all of them, but someone once told me that every 7 years your taste buds change. In my case this is definitely true. I still don’t care much for the green bell peppers, but the red, orange and yellow ones are super sweet and really lovely. I think one of the reasons for my aversion to bell peppers started when I would try to eat the traditional stuffed bell pepper, over cooked mushy green bell pepper with some pretty bland ground beef, rice and tomato sauce… Now that I have an appreciation for this fine vegetable and we are in the time of year that they are popping out of people’s gardens across the nation, I decided to give the bell pepper the status it deserves. So, I created the Sausage Stuffed Pepper!

In this beautiful little pepper you will find not only lean ground beef, but hot Italian sausage, brown rice, onions, tomato sauce and my secret ingredient… Swiss cheese. I decided to keep the ingredients super simple and let the sausage do most of the work for me. It’s a super simple and delicious dinner to get on the table to spice things up. And as a mom, I have to tell ya, I love it when a fully balanced meal is all in one tidy package like this.

Now, my husband is still at odds with the poor little bell pepper, so I simply took some of the filling and placed it in an individual casserole dish for him. If you have pepper haters in your life or just want to try something different, this filling can be placed in a hollowed out zucchini, eggplant or ooooo spaghetti squash, yum. It’s super versatile and easy to work with. Give it a try!

The recipe I am going to go through with you is for my small family, so I am only making three peppers and a small casserole as I mentioned… but, you can absolutely double or triple without a problem… You could even double and freeze half if you like…

Start with some lean ground beef, the sausage will provide plenty of fat. I use half a pound. Start this sauteing in a large skillet over medium heat.

Then I used three hot Italian sausages… If you don’t care for spicy food, you could certainly use mild, it will be super yummy too!

I cut down the side to remove the casing.

Give one medium onion a medium dice.

This is a small can of plain tomato sauce. You will use half now and half when you bake and serve.

You’ll want to shred up about a cup for the filling.

then you’ll want to shred up some more for the topping.

Brown up your ground beef while breaking up and browning your sausage meat.

Add your onions right in while you are doing this.

Let them get all nice and brown and lovely in the pan.

Add in about a cup and a half of cooked brown rice. (this is great to do when you have left over rice from dinner the night before… you might even cook a bit extra if you know this is your plan… saves you a step)

Once all combined, I like to transfer to a bowl to cool it a bit. If you want to stick to the pan, that’s fine too, less dishes.

Add in half a small can of tomato sauce.

Combine.

Then add in your cup of cheese and mix in… if your mixture is super hot, you will have to work quickly here so that the cheese doesn’t all clump together.

Once combined, just taste for salt and add a pinch of salt and fresh cracked black pepper.

Here are my peppers, aren’t they pretty? Notice, I left out the green 🙂

You’ll want to cut off the top and remove the seeds from both top and bottom. I try and cut just the very top so there is lots of room for stuffing.

They are all ready, you don’t need to do anything to the insides other than remove those seeds.

Now to prepare the baking dish, I put in some olive oil. (This baking dish I am using is stone, if you are using a metal baking dish, be sure to really coat with a non-stick cooking spray or a bit more oil)

And about half of what is remaining in that small can of tomato sauce… I like to reserve some for serving.

Place the peppers in the pan standing up.

Fill each one evenly.

It’s great if you over stuff a bit.

Then top with your remaining cheese. Pile it on, don’t be shy.

Pop the top back on and it’s ready to go into your preheated 350°F oven for about half an hour. (I like my pepper a bit on the firm side and the filling is fully cooked so that’s just really getting heated through. If you like a softer pepper, go for 45 minutes, etc, until you get the pepper to the consistency you like)

And this is what you get when they come out of the oven… Still firm enough to stand up and hold the filling and heated to perfection.

Recipe for Sausage Stuffed Peppers:

(serves 3-4)

1/2 lb. lean ground beef

3 Hot Italian Sausage links, removed from casing

1 medium onion, diced

1 1/2 cups cooked brown rice

1 small can tomato sauce, divided

1 1/2 cups Swiss cheese, shredded

3 bell peppers, seeded

kosher salt and fresh cracked black pepper to taste

1 Tbs. olive oil

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350°F.

In a skillet brown the ground beef, sausage and onion over medium heat. Once fully browned and onions are soft, add in cooked brown rice. Combine and transfer to a mixing bowl for easier handling. Add in 1/2 can of tomato sauce. Combine. Add in 1 cup of shredded cheese. Combine.

Prepare peppers by cutting off the top and removing the seeds from the top and bottom. Prepare a baking dish by adding in the olive oil and 1/2 of the remaining tomato sauce. Spread.

Add filling to each pepper, overstuffing if possible. Top with remaining cheese. Add on the top of each pepper. Bake for 30-45 minutes uncovered.

Serve with remaining tomato sauce, Enjoy!

*This is a gluten-free recipe.

London Broil Grinder

August 14, 20152 Comments

Grinder, Hoagie, Subway, Sub, Torpedo, Hero or Dagwood… whatever you like to call a big perfectly designed sandwich is up to you… but no matter how you slice it, this dish is pretty delectable. London Broil as a deli meat is fairly new to me. I love to make an actual London Broil Roast in the cooler months, but I was pleasantly surprised to find it available at my local grocer in the deli department! Basically it is a kicked up sort of roast beef. London Broil comes from a much more flat and narrow piece of meat, unlike your traditional roast. This means the surface to flavor ratio goes up by quite a bit.

Fresh and flavorful ingredients are a great start to a good sandwich, but the key to a good grinder is all in the details of how to build your sandwich. For example, I like my bread to be soft on the inside, but to have a toasty exterior. There needs to be the correct meat to bread ratio. Then there are the seasonings. In this sandwich we will season the meat and be sure to have oil and vinegar.

This sandwich is great for lunch, dinner or just a snack if you’re super hungry… It’s great for a meal on the go, a picnic or to cut up for Sunday Football! It’s very versatile and travels well wrapped in foil.

Start with a good sandwich roll… this one happens to be a portuguese roll from a local bakery and is about 7-8″ long.

Take a serrated knife and cut along the side of the bread, careful not to cut all the way through.

Grab some good olive oil and pour it into a bowl for easy use.

Brush onto both exposed insides of the bread.

Once you have it moderately coated, stick it in under your broiler for a minute or two. With the oil this goes pretty quickly… I like my bread a little over toasty, but it that’s not your preference and you don’t like scraping black, watch the oven, don’t send a text, don’t answer the door… watch the bread.

Here is the London Broil meat. This one is Boar’s Head… I’m sure your local deli has either Boar’s Head or another brand, if not, you can use roast beef.

Once your bread is properly toasted, add on your deli meat individually.

We are using a 1/4lb. of meat here, so you want to pile it on with some volume.

The outside of any good roast is usually a pretty yummy seasoning, however, the inside is usually in need of a little help. So, just a sprinkle of some kosher salt will do it.

Then a couple cracks of black pepper.

Can’t have a good sandwich without the right cheese… My favorite for this particular sandwich is a nice Provolone.

Now layer it on. You are going for full cheese coverage here. Again, pop this under the broiler for a minute or two, but watch it.

I am not a fan of burnt cheese, so this a nice melt and warm through was all I was after here.

Now I am brushing on a bit more olive oil.

Add on a good mayonnaise. If you want to roast some garlic in with your mayo, that would be really yummy here too. Of course you may be of the mustard persuasion and that’s o.k. too… but not me.

Evenly distribute your mayo. Here would be the step where you would add in any fresh veggies you would like to add… so lettuce, tomato, pickles etc… none for me thanks. I would rather have a salad on the side than to interrupt this perfectly balanced sandwich. (Also, if you want to add fresh veg. just be sure you aren’t traveling too far otherwise you may want to bring it along separately so they don’t get all wilty.)

Just one last addtion... the peppers... you can use sweet peppers of course, but there is something about the kick of a nice hot pepper ring that I love here. Pickled hot peppers also provide your sandwich with that briney vinegar... If you don't like peppers at all, still add in some vinegar for the flavor and balance.

Just one last addition… the peppers… you can use sweet peppers of course, but there is something about the kick of a nice hot pepper ring that I love here. Pickled hot peppers also provide your sandwich with that briny vinegar… If you don’t like peppers at all, still add in some vinegar for the flavor and balance.

Now add on those hot pepper rings. Don’t be shy about including a few drops of the yummy liquid they are kept in too!

Recipe for London Broil Grinder:

(Serves 2)

1/2 lb. sliced deli style London Broil

4 slices deli style Provolone cheese

2 sub rolls, Portuguese rolls

1/8 cup olive oil

1/8 cup mayonnaise

1/8 cup hot pepper rings

kosher salt

fresh cracked black pepper

Directions:

Pre-heat broiler set to low. Prepare a sheet pan with a layer of foil or parchment paper.

Slice into bread lengthwise with a serrated knife. Be sure not to cut all the way through. Brush with olive oil. Pop under the broiler to toast. Watch the progress.

Take out of the oven and build your sandwich. Place each piece of London Broil on individually splitting between the two sandwiches. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Add cheese up on top of each sandwich. Again place under the broiler for one minute or so until cheese becomes melty.

Remove from oven and brush with a little more olive oil. Then add on mayonnaise and hot pepper rings. Close up and wrap in foil to keep warm.

Enjoy!

Mom’s Amazing Chouriço & Peppers (Chouriço com Pimenta)

August 12, 2015August 16, 201514 Comments

My Mom makes the most amazing Chouriço & Peppers sandwiches. We just celebrated my son’s 3rd birthday and of course I asked my Mom to make this delightful treat. I also asked that she be sure I was there to document her exact steps with my trusty camera, so you get the recipe right from the source.

Five easy ingredients, one pot, and three simple steps make for a new favorite week night meal, pot luck contribution, tail gating staple or party request time and time again. I don’t think I can ever recall a Portuguese party that did not have some version of this sandwich piled up on a platter. But, I have to say every time I bring these little sandwiches with this specific recipe to a party, I hear nothing but compliments and requests for the recipe. This past weekend was no exception. People ate them right up and kept coming back for more! So here it is…

Here is the start.

This is ground chouriço… Most recipes involving chouriço that I have shared thus far have involved chouriço in its original form… but this is a version sold without the skin and ground up.

It’s the same price as regular chouriço and for this recipe we are starting with 3 lbs. because this is for a party.

A lot of people like to use green bell peppers for this recipe, but I am not a fan of the green, I prefer the sweeter red, orange and yellow. This is total personal preference. If you want to go the traditional route, go ahead and use green.

Three small cans of tomato sauce. We like to use plain Hunt’s… not ‘no salt added’ not ‘italian seasoning’ …just plain.

My mom likes to dice her onions pretty finely, she is not a fan of chunky onions in anything.

The peppers however, are diced up pretty big, each piece is roughly chopped to the size of between a nickel and a quarter. Saute both onions and peppers in a bit of olive oil for just a few minutes.

Add in all the tomato sauce and stir.

Now you want to add in about 8 oz. of beer per pound of chouriço.

Add in chouriço.

Stir. Notice how thick the consistency is when you start out.

Cover, lower heat to medium/low and allow to simmer.

As the cooking process goes on some of the fat is released from the chouriço and it becomes much more liquidy. Continue to cook until that liquid gets reduced by about half. In the end, you still want it moist.

Each brand of chouriço has a different level of fat, this recipe is based on Michael’s Provisions Chouriço which has a low fat content and so it produces less liquid when cooking… If you are using a chouriço with a higher fat content, you may need to cook longer to cook off some of the liquid.

Recipe for Mom’s Amazing Chouriço & Peppers:

(makes 30 party size sandwiches)

3 lbs. ground chouriço

3 bell peppers, large dice

3 onions, small dice

3 small cans tomato sauce

24 oz. beer

olive oil

30 mini portuguese sandwich rolls (or lg. rolls cut in half)

Directions:

Saute onions and peppers in olive oil. Add in chouriço, tomato sauce and beer. Cover and simmer over medium/low heat for about 1 hour. When liquid is reduced by about half, turn off heat and stuff sandwiches. (The meat should be very moist, but not soupy.)

Enjoy!

***NOTE: this recipe is a one to one ratio throughout, so if you want to cut it down or increase the amount, just do so in kind… for example to make for a family dinner use 1 lb. chouriço, 1 small can tomato sauce, one pepper, one onion and 8 oz. of beer 🙂

the portuguese american mom

stay awhile… have a cup of tea, let's get creative!

Tag: peppers

Portuguese Style Stuffed Peppers

Portuguese Stuffed Peppers

Lisa’s Sausage Stuffed Jalapeños

Lisa’s Sausage Stuffed Jalapeños

5 Bean CrockPot Chili

5 Bean CrockPot Chili

Easy 3 Layer Dip

Sausage Stuffed Peppers

London Broil Grinder

Mom’s Amazing Chouriço & Peppers (Chouriço com Pimenta)