Buffalo Chicken Stuffed Peppers

It’s 5:44 in the morning and I’m writing this blog post (insert teeth-gritting emoji here).

The sadder part? I’ve been up since 3:45. Why? Because of my weirdo sleep schedule, of course.

Since I work overnights on the weekdays, when it comes to the weekends, no matter how hard I try, I can’t help but get up early. For instance, yesterday: After working from midnight to 8 in the morning, I took a nap around 2 in the afternoon, woke up at 5 in the afternoon, went to “bed” at 10 at night, and then woke up at 3:45.

You would think I would’ve at least slept until 6! And trust me, I tried to go back to sleep…but my brain was too busy crunching numbers for bills, and my fingers were too busy shopping on Amazon ($50 worth of wedding decor? What better time to buy than 4 o’clock in the morning!).

Anyway, since I’m up and drinking a hot cup of coffee, I figured I’d type up this blog post I meant to do last week. This stuffed pepper recipe sustained my life force throughout my week of moonlighting on the overnight shift. I would eat this for “lunch” at around 7 in the morning. Each bite I took, I’d do a little dance. It’s that good!

I had a little bit of quinoa left in my pantry so I thought I’d throw that in as well. You can’t have stuffed peppers without a grain, right? It works in this recipe, too. Adds just enough heartiness to make it complete.

I topped my peppers with some ranch (confession: if I could marry a bottle of ranch, I would), blue cheese crumbles, and sliced green onions. These peppers are just exquisite! Hint: use red, yellow and orange peppers. I feel like they taste better than green peppers, but I could just be crazy—I also think that brown and green M&M’s taste better than the other colors, when I’m 90% sure they all taste the same.

Step-By-Step Instructions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Slice bell peppers in half and place on a rimmed baking sheet, cut-side up. Drizzle 1 tablespoon olive oil over peppers and sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Meanwhile, in a large skillet, heat other tablespoon of olive oil over medium high heat. Sprinkle paprika, salt and pepper over chicken tenders and cook, about 4 minutes per side until chicken is no longer pink. In a small saucepan, cook quinoa according to package instructions. Transfer chicken to a bowl and shred with two forks.

Pour hot sauce in with chicken and mix until well coated. Add quinoa and mix until everything is well combined.

Spoon chicken-quinoa mixture into bell pepper halves. Sprinkle Monterrey Jack cheese blend on top and then bake until cheese is melted and peppers are crisp-tender, about 20 minutes.

Serve drizzled with ranch and topped with blue cheese and scallions.