Wondering what to make for dinner tonight? Well look no further! We have some raw vegan stuffed peppers for you!

These are stuffed with a quinoa salad, and if you are familiar with quinoa, you know you have to cook it. This is one of the few grains and vegetables that I do eat cooked, as quinoa is soooo good for you, and it tastes amazing in salads or just by itself as a sweet or savory snack!

In order to prepare this meal, there are a couple steps you have to follow prior to the actual stuffing of the peppers, such as boiling the quinoa and marinating the mushrooms. Just make sure you plan this ahead of time, giving yourself about 2 to 4 hours or so.

Look at that gorgeous fresh perfection!

So without further ado…let us begin!

Note: For the peppers, you can use any assortment of red, green, yellow or orange bell peppers. The amount I made will stuff at least ten, maybe 15 peppers, depending on size. You can also stuff less and save the leftover quinoa salad to eat by itself or as a side dish.

Step 1: for the leek and mushroom marinade, you will need:

– 2 cups sliced mushrooms, crimini, shitake, or any mushroom you prefer

– 1 1/2 cups thinly sliced leeks

– 2 cups cherry or grape tomatoes, chopped in half

– 1 thinly sliced garlic clove

– 1 tbsp hemp seeds

– 1 tbsp sesame seeds

– 1 tbsp nutritional yeast

After the veggies and nutritional yeast are chopped and in a bowl, we must prepare the marinade. Add in:

– 1 tbsp olive oil

– 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar

– juice of 1 lemon

– 1 tsp turmeric

– 1 tsp fenugreek (optional)

– 1/2 tsp pepper

– 1/2 tsp salt

Mix these ingredients in with the veggies, cover and set aside to marinate, at least 2 hours, preferably up to 4. Your mixture should look something like this:

Step 2: for the preparation the walnut basil pesto, you will need:

–  1 1/2 cups of walnuts, soaked in water. This is for our walnut basil pesto later. You will want to soak the walnuts for about an hour, so do this after preparing the mushroom marinade

Step 3: for the preparation of the quinoa stuffing you will need:

– 3 cups quinoa, soaked for about an hour, then boiled with 6 cups water.

You cooked quinoa the same way as rice, 1 part quinoa to 2 parts water. Quinoa is ready once you can see little sprouted tails at the end of the grains like this:

Once the quinoa is cooked, set aside to cool.

Step 4: Preparation for quinoa salad

As you wait for the quinoa to cool, start preparing the rest of the vegetables to add to the salad:

– 3 grated carrots

– 1 handful parsley, thinly sliced

– 1 handful cilantro, thinly sliced

– juice of 1 lemon or lime

– 1 tsp paprika

– 1 tsp salt

Add them all together in a large bowl, then mix in with the cooled quinoa.

Step 5: Mix!

After the parsley, carrots and cilantro are chopped and in the bowl, throw in the mushroom leek marinade, and mix. You should now have a beautifully colored quinoa salad:

You can eat this plain as a salad as well, as there will be plenty for which to do so!

Step 6: Walnut basil pesto

In your high-powered blender, throw in:

– Your 1 1/2 cups of soaked walnuts

– 1 chopped zucchini

– 1 handful basil (or more if you prefer)

– 1 handful arugula

– 1 handful parsley

– 1 handful cilantro

– 1/2 cup pine nuts

– 1 clove garlic

– couple sprigs of fresh rosemary, stems removed

– couple sprigs of fresh thyme, stems removed

– salt and pepper

Step 7: We are now ready to begin stuffing!

Get your bell pepper assortment, cut them in half lengthwise, and remove the seeds and insides to make as much room as you can for the stuffing:

Start by spooning out the quinoa salad, and stuffing it into the peppers. Pack it in there tight so you can get as much stuffing in the pepper as you can. Let it overflow too, you want to have a large fantabulous feast of raw stuffed peppers to eat!

^Your peppers should look something like this ^

Once the peppers are stuffed, we will then spoon on the walnut basil pesto, and as a final touch, add a cilantro leaf and a half of a tiny cherry tomato:

And that is it! Look how beautiful that stuffed pepper looks! And it tastes even better! Eat as many as you want, because you can and you should!

The fresh, sweet crunchiness of the peppers combined with the lemony quinoa stuffing and the creamy basil pesto is a fresh, amazing taste like never before! I didn’t even bother with a knife and fork…as you can see, I just picked up the whole thing and am eating it like a sandwich…yummm!!