Stuffed peppers are a popular dish in many parts of the world, and Japan is no exception. Not only is it tasty, but it's also simple to make and provides a good way of getting meat and vegetables in one dish. Bell peppers, known in Japanese as ピーマン pīman, from the French word 'piment,' are known to be rich in Vitamin C, containing 97% of the US Daily Value (DV) in a 100 gram reference amount. Red bell peppers have double this amount.

However, one problem that sometimes happens is that the meat stuffing falls out when you flip them over or remove them from the oven or frying pan.

Competitive eater, singer, TV personality and YouTuber ギャル曽根 Gal Sone introduces a neat lifehack to prevent this on her YouTube channel:

As it turns out, the problem is moisture. A raw green bell pepper, for example, is 94% water. Some of it seeps out from the fruit's mesocarp (inner lining) and this can cause the meat filling to dislodge and fall out as the pepper loses its firmness during cooking.

To prevent this from happening, Gal Sone recommends grilling the peppers first. She uses a fish grill, which is typically installed in Japanese cooking ranges, in her video but if your range doesn't have one, a toaster oven or even your frying pan will do the trick.

After the halved peppers are grilled, she coats them in flour before stuffing them with the meat filling and placing them meat-side down in the frying pan.

Since the skins are already nicely grilled, there's no need to flip them over and cook the other side. And when it's time to take them out of the pan, the meat doesn't fall out.

Gal Sone called it "the discovery of the century," which may be an exaggeration but her fans were impressed, leaving comments such as:

  • "I’ve never seen such beautiful stuffed peppers. I can't stop drooling..."
  • "She's right. It's 'the discovery of the century!' lol. I want to make it too."
  • "This was very helpful. I appreciate these videos."

In the same video, Gal Sone also made stewed bell peppers and a vegetarian version of pepper steak (known in China as 青椒肉絲 qīngjiāo ròu sī, in Japan as チンジャオロース chinjaorōsu) without the steak.

For the tasting part, Gal Sone's husband makes an appearance and the two of them are seen enjoying the dishes.

On her YouTube channel ギャル曽根公式チャンネル「ごはんは残さず食べましょう」 (gyaru sone kōshiki chaneru gohan wa nokosazu tabemashō | Gal Sone official channel - let's clean our plates), which has over 416,000 subscribers at the time of writing, Gal Sone also introduces other short recipes and menus aimed at making veggies easy and enjoyable to eat.

If you're interested, why not check it out?


By - grape Japan editorial staff.