How to Cook Costco’s Stuffed Peppers {Freezing Instructions Included!}

The Costco Stuffed Peppers are an easy way to feed a crowd when you want to spend less time cooking and more time visiting.  That is what I had going on last week so I headed down to Costco and picked up two packages of ready to bake stuffed peppers along with a few other side dishes.

These peppers are really tasty and, as long as you don’t screw them up like I almost did, I am pretty sure you will love them.

Cooking Instructions

The cooking instructions for the stuffed peppers seem really straightforward but I ALMOST really screwed these up!

Here are the instructions from the label:

• Preheat oven to 400F.
• Remove the peppers from the package, place in an ovenable pan and cover with foil.
• Place on center rack in oven.
• Bake for 50-60 minutes until an internal temperature of 165F is reached.

Simple, right?

How I almost ruined these peppers was by not paying attention and thinking that the packaging was the same as it always had been.  These peppers used to come in an aluminum foil pan with a plastic lid.

You would remove the plastic lid, cover the pan with aluminum foil and put them in the oven.

What has changed is the the peppers now come in a PLASTIC pan instead of aluminum!  The plastic pan is NOT oven safe.  You have to remove the peppers from the plastic pan and place them in your own oven ready pan.

I had put foil over the plastic tray and was moments away from putting the plastic in the oven when I realized the tray felt funny and figured out the mistake.

I was able to fit the two trays worth of papers into a Pyrex baking dish, covered them with aluminum foil and baked them for one hour.  They came out perfect.

You can also work in batches and follow these instructions to cook the stuffed peppers in your air fryer.

Ingredients

Each tray comes with six half bell peppers stuffed with the following:

• Cooked Ground Beef
• Tomato Paste
• Cooked Rice
• Mozzarella Cheese
• Provolone Cheese
• Vinegar
• Onion
• Sugar
• Salt

The stuffing is topped with grated Parmesan cheese and parsley.

The bell peppers are always either yellow, orange or red and never green.

The label does NOT say that the meal is Gluten Free but it does not contain any ingredients that should contain gluten.  Than being said, the meal is prepared in the deli alongside plenty of other gluten containing ingredients so contamination is possible.

Calories and Nutrition

You get six stuffed peppers per package and each stuffed pepper is a single serving.

The nutritional information for a single stuffed pepper is:

• Calories: 350
• Fat: 16g (25% DV)
• Cholesterol: 70 mg (23%DV)
• Sodium: 810mg (34% DV)
• Carbohydrates: 23g (8% DV)
• Protein: 26g

The nutritional facts are consistent with a meal that is basically seasoned beef, rice and cheese with a side of peppers.  You will also get a lot of Vitamin C and antioxidants from the bell peppers so the meal has some extra health benefits!

How to Serve

I kept things simple but tasty and picked up some other side dishes at Costco.

First, I headed over to the refrigerated produce section and picked up a few pounds of asparagus spears. Then I strolled over to the freezer section and picked up some Mexican Street Corn from Tattooed Chef.

Both of the sides were very easy to prepare and paired well with the beef and rice in the peppers.

Some other sides you could pick up at Costco are:

Reser’s scalloped potatoes are a quick and easy side dish that you can throw in the microwave and be ready to serve in about seven minutes.  My wife isn’t crazy about the potatoes but I like them well enough.  You can find these potatoes in the refrigerated coolers by the deli.

You can’t go wrong with the Costco Caesar Salad kit.  This is one of my “go to” side dishes and you can grab it from the same location as the stuffed peppers.

And speaking of things in the same cooler as the stuffed peppers, you could also pick up a tray of Costco Mac and Cheese and heat it along side the peppers in your oven.  Now that would be a filling and tasty dinner!

How to Freeze

My Mom mentioned that she has several friends who like to freeze these peppers and thaw them out one or two at a time.  This way they can get several meals from the tray instead of having to cook them all at once.

I did some digging on YouTube and Google to figure out the best way to freeze these peppers and this is what I came up with.

• Place the tray of stuffed peppers in the freezer for 1-2 hours to “pre-freeze” the peppers.
• Remove the tray from the freezer and tightly wrap each pepper with Saran wrap.
• Place the wrapped peppers into a Ziploc freezer bag (you can fit four peppers in a one gallon bag).
• Label the bag with today’s date.
• Place the bag in the freezer and store peppers until needed.

Several sources indicate that you can store frozen stuffed peppers for up to a year but for best results should use them within 3-6 months.

Cooking Frozen Stuffed Peppers

I did not find a consensus on the best way to cooked frozen stuffed peppers.

About half of the Internet says:

• Remove the desired amount of peppers from the freezer.
• Let the peppers thaw in the refrigerator overnight.
• Remove the Saran wrap.
• Bake at 400F for 1 hour.
• Peppers are done when the internal temperature of the stuffing is 165F.

The other half of the Internet says:

• Remove the desired amount of peppers from the freezer.
• Do NOT thaw the peppers.
• Remove the Saran wrap.
• Bake at 400F for 1 hour and 30 minutes.
• Peppers are done when the internal temperature of the stuffing is 165F.

It looks to me that either way will work just fine.

Price at Costco

The stuffed peppers are Item Number 42940 and are found in the refrigerated case at the deli with the other Take and Bake prepared meals.

The meal costs $4.29 per pound and comes with about 3.5 pounds of food.  This means the tray will cost you around $15.

You get six servings per tray so this works out to a cost of about $2.50 per serving.  This isn’t an amazing value but the meal is super tasty and the convenience factor is worth it.