Chef Darren McGrady shared the recipe for Princess Diana’s stuffed bell peppers. Former royal chef Darren McGrady shared his recipe for stuffed bell peppers. Princess Diana asked McGrady to prepare the recipe as part of her fat-free diet. The recipe is prep-heavy, but it’s a healthy and tasty meal […]
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- Former royal chef Darren McGrady shared his recipe for stuffed bell peppers.
- Princess Diana asked McGrady to prepare the recipe as part of her fat-free diet.
- The recipe is prep-heavy, but it's a healthy and tasty meal that's easy to make after work or school.
In a 2014 interview with HuffPost's Rebecca Adams, former royal chef Darren McGrady explained that Princess Diana focused on a healthy lifestyle after overcoming bulimia. McGrady told the outlet that Princess Diana began shifting towards a fat-free diet while living at Kensington Palace.
"I want you to take care of all of the fat. I'll take care of the carbs at the gym," Princess Diana said.
After I enjoyed Princess Diana's favorite dessert — bread and butter pudding by McGrady — I decided to try the stuffed bell pepper recipe! While the recipe requires quite a bit of prep work for the filling, the actual cooking process took almost no time, and it was simple to make as a home cook. The recipe is available in McGrady's book, "Eating Royally: Recipes and Remembrances from the Palace Kitchen."
To make, you'll need:
- 4 medium red bell peppers
- ¼ cup olive oil
- ½ cup roughly chopped onion
- 1 cup finely sliced button mushrooms
- 1 zucchini, diced
- ½ teaspoon dried oregano
- ½ salt and freshly ground pepper
- 2 tomatoes, roughly chopped
- 1 cup rice, cooked until al dente and cooled
- ½ cup water
- ½ chicken or vegetable bouillon cube
- 4 slices smoked bacon, broiled crispy and chopped
- 1 teaspoon fresh basil, shredded
- 4 ounces mozzarella cheese, diced
- 2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese
To start, cut the tops off of each bell pepper before cleaning out the seeds and membranes inside. McGrady wrote in his cookbook that if the bell peppers don't stand up correctly, cut small pieces off the bottom until they do.
Next, place the peppers on a baking sheet and drizzle with olive oil, making sure to coat it thoroughly. Don't be afraid to get olive oil inside the peppers because you'll need to use that same oil later in a frying pan.
Bake the peppers in the oven for about 25 minutes (or until they've begun to soften), and then remove them from the oven to cool.
Since this will take up the bulk of your time, I suggest beginning this process before baking the bell peppers or while they're in the oven.
Broil four slices of smoked bacon in the oven, shred one tablespoon of basil, cook one cup of rice, dice four ounces of mozzarella cheese, and dice one cup of zucchini.
The recipe said to chop the bacon into smaller pieces once they're broiled. It also said to cook the rice until al dente and let it cool, by setting it to the side. The term "al dente" in this recipe refers to boiling the rice so it's firm to the bite and not too soft in texture.
Don't be worried if your knife skills aren't up to par! All these ingredients will be stuffed inside a baked pepper anyway, so don't think about it too much.
As previously mentioned, McGrady's recipe said to use the olive oil from the bell peppers to sauté the vegetables.
I felt like I was making a simple one-pot meal instead of a royal recipe, but I guess that's part of its charm. At this point, add the onions, mushrooms, zucchini, and oregano into the pan to sauté over high heat until the vegetables begin to soften. Use the salt and pepper to season, but feel free to add more or less depending on your taste.
Then, add the tomatoes, rice, water, bouillon cube — I chose the chicken flavor — and let the mixture simmer for five minutes.
Around this point, a delicious smell began to waft across my kitchen, and there are very few smells I love more than sauteéd onions.
McGrady said to take the final ingredients — bacon, basil, and mozzarella cheese — and fold them into the rice mixture.
Once everything is evenly distributed, take a spoon and divide the filling among the four peppers.
Sprinkle the grated Parmesan cheese on top of the peppers and place them back in the oven for 15 minutes to let the cheese melt.
I'd like to give my compliments to the chef for this delicious meal!
Although I did the heavy lifting on these stuffed bell peppers, McGrady's recipe does a wonderful job of staying reasonably healthy while mixing in tons of flavors.
The rice with the added chicken bouillon may have been one of my favorite combinations, but next time I'm going to use granulated chicken bouillon instead of cubed, so it distributes more evenly.
Another standout in the dish was the melted mozzarella cheese, which added a light but gooey aspect to the recipe that I really enjoyed.
I'd recommend this recipe to anyone who loves a good stuffed bell pepper recipe or busy folks who need a simple meal to make after a long day at work.
