Cream cheese stuffed peppers with caramelized onions and herbs. This crazy tasty appetizer recipe requires only a few ingredients and only about 16 minutes of bake time! Whip these beauties up for your Super Bowl party this weekend.
Those of you who are looking for a speedy quick, easy, tempting, gooey, sultry Super Bowl appetizer recipe, you have come to the right place!
Fun fact: The recipe I posted almost five years ago for Cream Cheese Stuffed Baby Bell Peppers is still one of the most popular recipes on my site, in spite of the fact that the photo is off-the-wall silly, not at all Pinterest-friendly, and was taken with a point-and-shoot camera…
For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why the recipe has been doing so well for so long..
..until I made these cream cheese stuffed peppers again.
..and then I was like, “Oh. Yeah. That’s why. Because they’re nuggets of bliss.”
Who could blame you for loving the recipe?
Because the Super Bowl is this weekend (is it awful that I don’t even know which teams are competing?), I figured there would be no better time to share an updated version of the recipe, because, you guys, you’ll never need another appetizer recipe ever again.
For reals, these stuffed sweet peppers fill any/all appetizer needs/requirements. Except, you might want to consider wrapping them in bacon. Fair suggestion.
As I was saying…
This time around for the stuffing mixture, I decided to caramelize up an onion and mix it in with the cream cheese, along with some dried herbs. So.bloomin.simple..
The only labor-intensive part of this recipe is halving the sweet peppers and seeding them, but you can do this up to 1 day ahead of time.
The onion can easily be caramelized while you’re multi-tasking, and the cream cheese stuffing mixture can also be prepared ahead of time so that when it comes down to stuffing and baking, the prep time is miniscule. We’re talking a total of 16 to 20 minutes in the oven. Make ‘em in bulk!
Recipe Adaptations:
- Make these vegan by using vegan cream cheese.
- Add 1 tablespoon of sriracha or red chili sauce to the cream cheese mixture for an extra kick.
- Bake the peppers with cheddar or pepper jack cheese on top for an even cheesier experience.
- If you have dried chives on hand, I strongly recommend you add them to the cream cheese mixture! About 1-1/2 teaspoons would be great!
- Sautee up some spinach and make this a spinach onion dip stuffed pepper situation.
- Wrap in bacon prior to baking.
Also check out my Air Fryer Cream Cheese Stuffed Mini Peppers for an air fryer version of this recipe.
Caramelized Onion and Cream Cheese Stuffed Peppers
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 large yellow onion thinly sliced
- 16 baby sweet peppers halved and seeded
- 1 8-ounce package cream cheese*, see note
- 1 large clove garlic minced
- 2 teaspoons Italian seasoning
- 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
Instructions
- Heat the olive oil in a medium-sized skillet over medium high heat. Add the sliced onion and saute, stirring occasionally, until onion begins to turn translucent. Reduce the heat to medium-low and continue cooking, stirring occasionally, until onion has caramelized, about 40 to 60 minutes. Note: If the onion begins drying out or sticking to the pan at any point, you can add a few tablespoons of water to de-glaze the pan. Once onion has finished caramelizing, transfer to a cutting board and chop finely.
- Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F and halve and seed all of the peppers. Place the peppers in a mixing bowl and drizzle with 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Sprinkle with sea salt.
- Arrange peppers on a parchment-lined baking sheet in a single layer. Bake in the preheated oven for 8 minutes. Remove peppers from the oven and allow them to cool.
- Add the cream cheese, chopped caramelized onion, garlic, Italian seasoning, and sea salt to a mixing bowl. Stir well until all ingredients are well-combined. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F if it isn't already preheated.
- Use a spoon to scoop the cream cheese mixture into the peppers. Bake in the oven another 8 to 10 minutes, or until the cream cheese is golden-brown.
- Top the stuffed peppers with any additional toppings, such as chopped green onion, red pepper flakes, cheddar cheese, and/or a dollop of sour cream.
Notes
- Red pepper flakes
- Chopped green onion
- Cheddar cheese
These sound great! Do you have any nutritional information for these? There is a block for this, but it is basically empty. Thanks.
Hi there! I just updated the Nutrition Facts! Hope you enjoy! xo
Don’t forget some bacon on top too
YES! Woman after my own heart. 😉
40-60 minutes of carmelizing the onions?!?!? Surely this is a typo?
Hi Andrea,
Caramelizing onions does take a substantial amount of time. If you’re in a hurry, you can cut the saute time down to 20 minutes or so, but the flavor will not be as deep and the texture will not be as soft. Hope you enjoy the stuffed peppers! xo
these look so good – I could eat a tray of them – love that they can be made vegan:)
hoooray for updated recipes. I love those! and perfect timing indeed. I feel like I should try with the vegan cheese. Yes!
We might have to give up ice cream as our favorite TV watching treat! These look delicious!
I always think it is fun to look back at old posts to see how far you’ve come (and honestly, your photography back then was still pretty good, especially compared to mine when I was starting out!)! But both versions of this look incredible!