Air Fryer Stuffed Peppers

This short and sweet air fryer stuffed peppers recipe pairs a chipotle cerveza ground beef with pepper jack cheese to make a lower carb Tex-Mex treat. Each pepper is packed with 31 grams of protein and is highly customizable when it comes to filling options, but we’ll get to that.

I’ll run you through the recipe below and cover a few extra tips and ingredient notes along the way. And you’ll find a printable recipe at the bottom of the post as always.

Step 1: Blend chipotle peppers in adobo, garlic, cilantro, salt, cumin, and a cerveza together. 

Careful adding the salt to the beer. It’ll create some foam. Hash tag science!

If you don’t have a beer on hand, you can swap the cerveza for chicken or beef broth. The alcohol will cook off, for what it’s worth, only leaving you with some great flavor. You can also use non-alcoholic beer like the Texas Select I used to make my chicken carnitas.

And in case you’re a cilantro hater, try swapping it for ground coriander like I use for my Shredded Mexican Chicken.

Step 2: Brown a pound of ground beef before adding the chipotle cerveza mixture. Cook until a spatula leaves a trail. 

I used the new Instant Pot Air Fryer and Pressure Cooker combo to make these air fryer stuffed peppers. So you’ll notice in the photos below I prepared the chipotle cerveza ground beef directly in the Instant Pot before air frying. You can definitely use a pan over medium-high heat, though.

Related: 15 Recipes for the Instant Pot Air Fryer

Pro tip: When the recipe says brown the ground beef, it means let it hang out on both sides to develop some color before crumbling to finish cooking. I’ll spare you the rants from my sweet chili ground beef and brussels sprouts or loaded ground beef and potatoes and just say—leave that beef alone!

Just be sure you reduce the beef mixture until a spatula leaves a lasting trail. Air frying the beef and peppers will reduce the excess moisture but only to a certain extent. You don’t want to cut into your stuffed peppers and have juices run everywhere.

Step 3: Remove the tops, seeds, and membranes from 4 bell peppers, stuff the peppers with beef, and air fry for 12 minutes at 375ºF. 

If you’re using a smaller air fryer, you may need to cook in batches. And if you decide to use some other filling options with more ingredients like rice, beans, or corn, you’ll need more peppers. Four large bell peppers fits the chipotle ground beef perfectly.

Step 4: Top with cheese and air fry for another 8 minutes at 375ºF. 

I used pepper jack, but you can use any type of cheese here. You can get an idea of how much cheese three ounces is on top of the peppers. If you wanted to save some fat, you could cut back a little bit. Or if you use a leaner ground beef, you could add some extra cheese in the actual beef mixture before filling the peppers.

More Filling Ideas for Your Stuffed Peppers

In my opinion, the ground beef is the star of the show here. And like I mentioned above, the beef fits perfectly in four peppers for air frying. So I kept it simple with the filling. If you wanted to add some extras, check out some of my favorite recipes that would work great as a filling for stuffed bell peppers:

• Tex Mex Ground Chicken and Veggies
• Mexican Stuffed Poblano Peppers
• Buffalo Chicken Stuffed Peppers
• Low Carb Italian Stuffed Peppers (or my Instant Pot Bolognese for rice-free)
• Tex-Mex Ground Beef and Rice
• Instant Pot Ground Turkey Taco Meat

You could also convert the chorizo filling from my air fryer jalapeño poppers into stuffed bell peppers.

If you have a recipe question I didn’t cover, drop a comment at the bottom of the post and I’ll help you out. And if you decide you’d rather make something a bit easier, check out my deconstructed stuffed pepper soup.