Bacon Wrapped Meatloaf Stuffed Peppers

Quick and easy for weeknight dinners! Best comfort food you'll ever eat.

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Jump to:

• 🗝️ Key takeaways
• 🧾 Ingredients
• 🔪 Instructions
• 🥫 How to store leftovers
• 💭 Things to know
• 👩‍🍳 FAQs
• 🥗 Best sides for meatloaf
• 📖 Variations
• 📚 Related recipes
• 📞 The last word
• 📖 Recipe
• ✍🏻 A note from Marye...
• 💬 Comments

🗝️ Key takeaways

• It cooks so much faster than regular meatloaf recipes and it's delicous.
• This is another recipe I like for weeknights because you can assemble them ahead of time or even freeze them. Quick and easy!
• See the FAQs section for how to make these in a slow cooker. Even easier!

A spicy, seasoned meatloaf mixture is packed into bell pepper halves. The whole thing is wrapped in bacon and baked.

The peppers and bacon add their flavors to the meat as it cooks and keeps it nice and moist.

The flavors from the bacon and peppers saturate the meat during cooking to create a family friendly meal that looks (and tastes) like you slaved in the kitchen all afternoon.

And, since you're making small meatloaves, rather than one big one, the cooking time is way shorter -- just about 30 minutes.

Think of it as stuffed peppers without rice!

🧾 Ingredients

Here are the meatloaf stuffed pepper ingredients so you can make this simple (yet stunning!) recipe-

• Bell peppers add so much flavor as the meatloaf cooks! If you have any kind of questions about peppers you'll want to read this post about bell peppers!
• Ground beef used is 90/10 or lower fat. The meatloaf stays moist because of the Bell pepper and the bacon so there's no reason to use a fattier blend.
• Panko bread crumbs add texture and help it all hold together.
• Onion adds even more flavor. Use yellow or white - either is fine.
• Spicy ketchup is my preference because I like the flavor. You can use regular ketchup if you like.
• Eggs act as a binder in this recipe. Large eggs were used.
• Salt and pepper are the only seasoning you'll need.
• Bacon adds a smoky flavor as well as helping the meat stay moist.

🔪 Instructions

Note: This is an overview of the instructions. The full instructions are in the green recipe card below.

1. Preheat the oven to 375F.
2. Cut the peppers in half long-wise and remove seeds and membrane.
3. Set aside.
4. Mix the ground beef, breadcrumbs, onion, ketchup, eggs, salt, and pepper together until it is well blended.
5. Pack an equal amount of the mixture in each Bell pepper half.
6. Wind bacon around the pepper and meatloaf, securing it with toothpicks.
7. Bake for 30 minutes or until the internal temperature reaches 155F and the bacon is crispy.
8. Remove from the oven and let stand 10 minutes before serving.

See the recipe card for slow cooker instructions.

🥫 How to store leftovers

You can assemble the meatloaf stuffed peppers up to 2 days ahead of time and bake them when ready.

Once baked these easy stuffed peppers will be fine in the refrigerator for about 3 or 4 days. Be sure to cover it with plastic wrap.

You can also freeze them for up to 3 months in an airtight container, baked or unbaked.

Thaw overnight in the refrigerator and bake as directed. If they're cooked then thaw and heat in the microwave or in the oven.

You'll want to cook any meatloaf until an instant read thermometer registers 160F in the center.

After you take it out of the oven you'll let it stand for 5 minutes or so which allows all the juices to settle as well as bringing the final temperature up to 165F.

The nice thing about meatloaf is that it can be served at any temperature and it will still taste scrumptious!

💭 Things to know

• Save time by assembling them up to 2 days ahead of time and baking them when you are ready to eat.
• I like to cut the peppers in half longwise and fill each half with meatloaf because it cooks more quickly. You can also just cut the tops of the peppers off, clean out the seeds, and stuff the whole pepper with the meat mixture.
• You can make these on the grill - just place on top of an aluminum pan so the fat doesn't catch on fire. Add some wood chips to the grill for even more flavor from the smoke.

👩‍🍳 FAQs

Here are the questions I am most frequently asked about this recipe.

🥗 Best sides for meatloaf

• Mashed potatoes
• Macaroni and cheese
• Noodles Romanoff
• Cheesy hashbrown casserole
• Corn Pudding
• Green Beans
• Maple roasted carrots
• Salad
• Cloverleaf Rolls

📖 Variations

These easy mini meatloaf stuffed peppers have plenty of variations - and because they freeze really well they're great to have on hand. Here are some of my favorites.

• Use poblano peppers.
• Use the small sweet peppers to use this recipe to make appetizers. Bake for just 10 to 15 minutes or until the internal temp is 160.
• Add a slice of cheese to the top before wrapping in the bacon.
• Make cheese-stuffed meatloaf by forming the ground beef around a cube or two of Pepper-Jack cheese.
• Substitute crushed crackers for the Panko.
• Hollow out Vidalia onions and use in place of the Bell peppers. So good!
• Ground venison works really well in this recipe because this cooks in bell peppers and is wrapped in bacon. The fat helps it to stay moist.

📚 Related recipes

Here are some more of my favorite quick and easy recipes.

• Chicken Alfredo Ravioli takes no more than 15 minutes if you start with a rotisserie chicken from the deli.
• Meatballs with Honey Garlic Sauce are sweet and tangy - and best of all just take about 30 minutes.
• Bourbon Chicken is another 30 minute meal that tastes just like the food court favorite!
• Shrimp Po' Boy with Spicy Avocado Remoulade just needs some chips to round out the meal.
• Stuffed Pepper Soup is so good and it takes just 30 minutes or less -- or you can make it in a slow cooker.
• Grilled Shrimp Creole is quick and easy for summer!

📞 The last word

I love meatloaf.

I know it's totally not a cool thing to love but to me it is one of those iconic comfort foods from my childhood. It's inexpensive, easy to make, and if you are lucky enough to have leftovers (we never do) it's even better the next day.

The extra flavor that it gets when made into these meatloaf-stuffed Bell peppers wrapped in bacon just takes it right over the top!

One of the things I like to do is make a bunch of them when I have some free time then wrap them individually in plastic wrap and freeze in a freezer container.

Doing it that way means I can make as many as I need without thawing all of them. That's super important during those times everyone is going in different directions at different times!

Next time try this classic Heinz 57 Meatloaf.

If you click on the number of servings in the recipe card you can adjust the measurements up or down for the exact number of servings you need.

If you love this recipe please comment below and give it 5 stars!

📖 Recipe

✍🏻 A note from Marye...

I know y'all don't always like the stories bloggers tell so when I have one I try to put it at the very bottom so you can read or skip as you like.

Today I was running late, as usual. I had the ingredients for meatloaf out when I spotted some red Bell peppers in the fridge that definitely needed to be used.

Please tell me that I am not the only one that goes to Costco, sees all this amazing fresh produce, then loses it in the auxiliary fridge until it's almost too late!

Being totally honest? Sometimes it's way, way, way too late and I just have to feel guilty and through the fuzzy, blue mass away, wondering what it was before it was fuzzy and blue.

First published October 5, 2015. Last updated May August 24,2023 to improve user experience and add more information.