With Italian-style seasoning and a soft and jammy texture, these Italian peppers and onions make a seriously tasty side dish, topping, or ingredient all their own. A trifecta of natural sweetness, rich savory flavor, and a pop of acidity, cook them for shorter or longer to end up with your preferred texture.
We have sausage and peppers and peppers and eggs, so might as well throw this Italian peppers and onions recipe into the ring, too!
While both of those linked recipes include onion, this one pares things down and relies on just a few basic ingredients to produce a flavorful and versatile vegetable side dish (well, peppers are fruit) that can serve several purposes.
Beyond the always-good Italian seasonings and pop of garlic and balsamic vinegar, what I love about this recipe is that you can kind of 'choose your own adventure' with how they end up.
If you cook them to the shorter amount of time, you get wonderfully sautéed peppers and onions that retain a bit of crispness and have bite. A perfect side dish or addition to pasta. If you cook them to the longer end of the range (my preference), you will find them to develop a jammy, nearly-caramelized texture and rich, deep flavor. REALLY good as an easy sausage burger or sandwich topping. Just depends on what you feel like.
Recipe Ingredients
- Bell peppers: Different color peppers livens up the color of this dish, but varying them also serves a purpose. Red bell peppers are allowed to mature longer (hence the color change) and have a sweeter flavor than less-ripe green peppers. Using one of each rounds out the pepper flavor nicely.
- Onion: A given in peppers and onions. You may notice the yellow onion above magically transforms into a red onion below. I took these photos at different times and tested this recipe both ways (both good).
- Olive oil: A must to develop a tender texture and delicious flavor. Don't skimp - you'll want to ensure there's a thin layer of oil on the entire bottom of your pan before adding the peppers and onions.
- Dried spices: These include basil, oregano, thyme, garlic powder, crushed red pepper, salt, and black pepper for an Italian-style seasoning blend. A bonus of using dried spices is that their flavors get to bloom in the hot oil during the cook time. Besides the obvious - no chopping.
- Garlic: Yes, double garlic! Garlic powder is added near the beginning of the cook time while fresh garlic is added near the end to maintain its fresh flavor. Pressed/finely-minced garlic will burn if left in a hot pan for the lengthy amount of cook time this recipe calls for.
- Balsamic vinegar: A small drizzle about a minute before serving adds a deliciously contrasting pop of acidity and nice complementary flavor, as well as enhances the "jammy" nature of these softened, quasi-caramelized peppers and onions.
Step-by-Step Instructions
- Step 1: Slice peppers and onion into long, thin strips.
Tip: To efficiently slice a bell pepper, stand it up on its base, hold its stem, and slice down on all four sides to remove just the outer flesh. This will leave the inner stem with most, if not all, of the seeds attached for you to easily discard. Slice the pepper that remains.
- Step 2: Heat pan to medium, then add olive oil and once heated, peppers and onions. Stir to coat, then let them cook undisturbed for 5 minutes before seasoning with dried spices.
- Step 3: Continue to sauté, stirring often, as the peppers and onions soften and cook down to your preferred texture. This can take anywhere from 10-18 additional minutes.
- Step 4: A couple of minutes before these Italian peppers and onions have finished cooking, make a space in the center of the pan and add the pressed garlic. Cook for 1 minute, then drizzle in balsamic vinegar and cook for another minute before serving warm.
Pick Your Texture
This recipe has a wide cooking range: 15-23 minutes, give or take. Cooking these Italian peppers and onions until the lesser end of the range will results in larger pieces with more bite and a classic sautéed texture. The batch you see pictured here was allowed to cook to the long end of the range, becoming very soft, jammy, and on the path to caramelized (my favorite).
Keep in mind these vegetables will reduce considerably in volume the longer they cook, so you may wish to double the ingredients if you want a lot of soft, jammy peppers and onions.
Tips and Tricks
- Be mindful of the heat. Important when caramelizing onions and also applicable here: you don't want the heat to be too high so that whatever's cooking chars and starts to burn before softening and becoming jammy. Keep an eye on it and adjust it lower if you notice the peppers and onions getting prematurely toasty on the outside.
- Deglaze if needed. If at any point in the cook time you notice the peppers and onions beginning to stick to the bottom of the pan, pour in a small amount of water to deglaze it until things are moving again.
- Serving suggestions: Peep the photo below for my favorite way to eat these Italian peppers and onions (it's the burger).
- As a burger topping. And not just any burger - an Italian sausage burger. Complete the meal with a nice spread of spicy Calabrian aioli and really enjoy yourself at your next BBQ.
- Make on-the-fly sausage and peppers by preparing air fryer sausage links.
- Scramble them into eggs. A shortcut to making a pepper and egg sandwich.
- A generally tasty vegetable side dish, especially when sautéed for the shorter amount of time so they retain some bite.
Related Recipes
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Italian-Style Peppers and Onions
Ingredients
- 1 large red bell pepper seeded and thinly-sliced
- 1 large green bell pepper seeded and thinly-sliced
- 1 large onion white, yellow, or red, thinly-sliced
- 3 Tablespoons olive oil
- ½ teaspoon dried basil
- ½ teaspoon dried oregano
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt
- ¼ teaspoon dried thyme leaves
- ¼ teaspoon garlic powder
- ¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
- Crushed red pepper flakes optional
- 3 cloves garlic minced or pressed
- Balsamic vinegar to taste
Instructions
- Slice peppers and onion, discarding the seeds and pith from the peppers.
- Heat olive oil in a large (ideally 12-inch diameter) pan over medium heat. Add an extra drizzle of oil, if needed, to ensure that there is a thin covering of oil over the entire bottom of the pan.
- Add the sliced peppers and onion, give them a stir to coat them in oil, then leave them to cook for 5 minutes undisturbed. Then season with basil, oregano, salt, thyme, garlic powder, black pepper, and crushed red pepper, if using. Stir to coat everything evenly.
- Continue to cook, stirring often, for 10-18 minutes, or until softened to your liking. Adjust the heat lower as needed so that the peppers and onions can soften before overly browning. The shorter end of the range will result in more of a sautéed vegetable texture, while the upper range will result in an almost-caramelized texture. Deglazing the pan might become necessary (especially if stainless steel) - do so by pouring in a small amount of water and using a wooden utensil to scrape up anything stuck to the bottom.
- About 2 minutes before your peppers and onions are finished cooking to your liking, make a space in the center of the pan and add the pressed garlic. Let it cook for 1 minute before stirring it into the peppers and onions, then add a drizzle of balsamic vinegar. Stir and let that cook in for 1 minute before serving.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutritional information is provided as an estimate. As it can vary due to many factors (brands used, quantities, etc.), we cannot guarantee its accuracy.
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