Sweet Italian Frying Peppers are stuffed with Italian sausage, spinach, breadcrumbs and Parmesan. An absolutely addicting stuffed pepper recipe that’s easy enough for a very special weeknight dinner.
This is the first time in my life I’ve ever seen Sweet Italian Frying available for sale. Always up for a new culinary adventure, I googled “Italian Frying Peppers” to learn more, One entry indicated that these peppers are the same as Cubanella peppers.
When deciding what to do with my new vegetable, and coming up with Italian frying peppers recipe, my instinct told me that using a stuffing involving Italian Sausage. Let’s take a look.
Italian peppers, stuffed and ready for frying[/caption]
I love these peppers. Offering a sweet yet intense “pepper” flavor, something about them screams “It’s Amore”.
I wish I could find these peppers year round, they’d definitely amp up my Italian recipes. From what I read about them, being medium fleshed makes them an excellent candidate for frying.
Frying the stuffed peppers, face down in some olive oil
A sack full of these delicious Italian sweet frying peppers made their way home with me and voila, the next day I opened up Food and Wine Magazine and saw this recipe for Stuffed Italian Sweet Frying Peppers. It was meant to be. 🙂
This recipe comes together easily and is simply delicious. The peppers are so unique in flavor that I will not try this recipe with regular green bell peppers, but will wait to prepare this until when I can get my hands on some more Italian Sweet Frying Peppers.
The only variation I made was to tear off some small chunks of fresh mozzarella and insert here and there into the stuffed peppers. I liked the addition and will alter the recipe for my database.
Cooked and ready for some tomato sauce.
Recipe for Spinach Sausage Stuffed Italian Sweet Frying Peppers
I hope you can find some Italian Sweet Frying Peppers and if you do, please give this wonderful recipe a try. And if you do, please come back, give the recipe a star rating and leave a comment about your experience.
And if you have an Italian Sweet Frying Peppers recipe, please let me know, I’d love to give it a try.
Spinach Sausage Stuffed Sweet Italian Frying Peppers
Ingredients
- 5 ounce bag baby spinach
- 2 slices white sandwich bread finely chopped
- 1/4 cup milk
- 1 large egg
- 2 tablespoons freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
- 2 tablespoons pine nuts
- 2 tablespoons chopped red onion
- 1 pound sweet or hot Italian sausage casings removed
- Salt and freshly ground black pepper
- 8 small or 4 large Italian frying peppers halved lengthwise and cored, stems left intact
- 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
- 1 cup canned tomato sauce
- 1 cup low-sodium chicken broth
- A few chunks of fresh mozzarella cheese to poke here and there into the stuffed peppers
Instructions
- In a very large skillet, cook the spinach over high heat just until wilted, about 1 minute. Drain and press out all of the water. Coarsely chop the spinach. Rinse out and dry the pan.
- In a large bowl, knead the chopped bread with the milk, egg and cheese to form a paste. Knead in the pine nuts, onion, sausage and spinach and season lightly with salt and pepper. Using lightly moistened hands, divide the mixture among the pepper halves and lightly pack it in. Add chunks of fresh mozzarella gently pressing into the stuffed peppers.
- In the skillet, heat the olive oil until shimmering. Add the stuffed peppers, filling side down, and cook over high heat until well-browned, about 4 minutes. Turn the peppers and cook until the skins are browned and blistered, about 4 minutes longer. Add the tomato sauce and chicken broth, cover and simmer until the sausage filling is cooked through and the peppers are tender, 5 to 6 minutes. Transfer to plates and serve right away.
These sweet Italian peppers are called Giant Marconi Peppers. I grew them from a plant I bought in the spring from Walmart. Only three giant peppers grew on one plant. They turn red when fully ripe.
Just wanted to say that Cubanelles are not at all the same as Italian frying peppers! Italian frying peppers are a dark green color with patches of black sonetimes. They are slightly smaller than Cubanelles and not as big around. You would come closer to taste using “Goat horns”, which are much longer and sometimes even skinnier. We grew our own Italian frying peppers all my growing up years. Wish l had known to save the seeds. They are almost impossible to find today. Cubanelles are nowhere near the same thing.
Thanks so much for your note Connie. I’ve not found these peppers again since the day I bought them in this post. I’d really like to find them again.
When is the right time to pick them…will they be different colors or just green? I’m sorry just started growing a little garden for the first time..need a little help from you pros!!! 🙂 🙂
I’m not a pro at all. I purchased these from our Farmer’s Market Angie. But I think peppers can be pretty easy. The only ones I’ve ever seen were green.
Great info..I live in ohio and was told these were so much better than banana peppers..my plant has 1 and lots of one’s starting..excited to try them out..I know NOTHING about them
I made these last night but used.what I had on hand: dry chorizo, 8 oz. For the sausage, no extra salt , kale for the spinach, put in oven drizzled w olive oil at 350 for about an hour, no chicken stock but would peob work substituted for olive oil. They came out like delicious little poppers. No tomato sauce necessary
Thanks so much for taking the time to let me know. I agree, this is the kind of dish that would work so well with what was on hand. I need to find some this fall at our markets. Haven’t seen any yet.
My parents grow a ton of these every summer. They remove seeds hollow out whole and stuff w italian bread, romano cheese. Fresh tomato, egg, fresh garlic, salt. Put in oven w olive oil and let them oven fry.
Thanks for stopping by and the comment. I’m loving your description of the oven fry. Thanks for that!
Lea Ann…you made me realize how I have abandoned these very good peppers…I should use them more often. Very appetizing recipe and pics ;o)
Flavourful wishes,
Claudia
I’ve never had these peppers, but they sound great and I love the stuffing with the spinach and sausage!