Baked peppers au gratin: a light and healthy side dish

Now, this is one preparation that is super duper easy to prepare, takes no time to cook, no fancy ingredients and cooking skills required, yet you can enjoy it in many different ways. Serve it as a side dish, along with a hearty salad, or a snack.

This a very unique take on the au gratin preparation and is not at all creamy and rich, rather it is a very light and filling vegetable preparation.

Instructions

Remove the seeds and white part of the bell peppers and capsicum. Now, cut the vegetables in to quarters so that you get 8 boat shape structures from each bell pepper. Keep it aside. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C and line a baking tray with aluminum foil.

Lightly grease the foil with olive oil and keep it aside. In a bowl, add the bread crumbs, grated parmesan, minced garlic, sliced basil, dried rosemary, salt, and black pepper powder.

Mix everything well until nicely combined. Stuff the bell pepper depressions with the bread crumb filling and carefully place them on the greased baking tray.

Transfer the baking tray in to the preheated oven and bake for 10 minutes or until the peppers are slightly wilted and bread crumbs are crunchy in texture. Serve hot and enjoy!

Tips

You may prepare this dish with even one variety of bell pepper or capsicum. In case you do not have bread crumbs, you can use store brought panko bread crumbs as well. Or, you just toast some old pieces of bread until it is light brown in color. Grind the roughly broken toasted bread slices to instantly make bread crumbs at home. Cut the bell peppers in to small size (8 boat shaped structure) or medium size (4 boat shaped structure), as per your preference. You can also use low cost mozzarella or cheddar cheese for this dish instead of using the parmesan.

Nutritional information (per serving): 103 Calories, 2.9g Total fat (1.4g Saturated fat, 0.3g Polyunsaturated fat, 0.8g Monounsaturated fat), 4.9g Cholesterol, 289.5mg Sodium, 186.7mg Potassium, 14.7g Total carbohydrates (1.3g Dietary fiber, 0.9g Sugars), 5.2g Protein