These confetti guacamole stuffed peppers are a fun, colorful, and easy appetizer or side dish. Chickpeas and finely diced vegetables are folded into batch of creamy guacamole, then piled into raw red pepper halves. There’s so much crunch and freshness in this recipe—not to mention a plethora of nutrients from plants!

Have you ever found yourself with unexpected guests on the way, and the only snack or hors d’oeuvres idea that you can think of to serve is hummus?

Of course, there’s absolutely wrong with hummus. I can always snack on it. But when it comes to entertaining, it’s fun to offer loved ones—and oneself—something a little different, a little more creative.

Enter these confetti guacamole stuffed peppers. They’re vibrant, textured, and incredibly colorful. They also happen to be delicious, which means that they’re an easy crowd pleaser.

If you’ve got a party, a gathering for sports viewing, or a fun family night coming up, I can’t recommend them highly enough. And I’d love to teach you how to make them.

What is confetti guacamole?

To be clear, confetti guacamole isn’t some sort of official term, and it’s not a classic recipe. It’s just the name that I’ve given to a batch of guac that’s stuffed with colorful chopped veggies.

The guacamole in these guacamole stuffed peppers doesn’t only contain cilantro and red onion, which are traditional additions. It also contains:

• Finely diced zucchini
• Chickpeas
• Chopped curly kale
• Minced jalapeño pepper
• Finely diced bell pepper

As a result, the creamy green guac is studded with a bright array of mix-ins. It’s also full of texture, and the chickpeas make it much more filling than it would be otherwise.

More color = more nutrition

Perhaps you’ve read someplace that it’s a good thing to “eat the rainbow.”

When you read this, or if you come upon any other information that encourages you to get a wide array of color in your diet, it’s because the color of food can actually indicate the promise of health benefits.

Plant foods contain something called phytonutrients. These are pigments that give vegetables, fruits, and legumes their various colors.

The pigments also happen to be associated with health protecting properties.

The properties vary from pigment to pigment. Consumption of anthocyanins, which give red and purple foods their hues, is associated with decreased blood pressure.

Anthocyanins might also play a role in preventing neurological decline with aging.

Beta-carotene, associated with orange foods, may benefit eye health and play a role in strong immunity.

The lutein in dark, green leafy vegetables is also beneficial for healthy vision. Lutein is also associated with arterial function and liver function.

I’m sure that you get the idea. The more different types of vegetables you eat, the more you’ll maximize the number of phytonutrients being assimilated into your body.

And this can yield an array of protective effects on health.

How to make guacamole stuffed peppers

One of the nice things about this recipe, especially if you have other food prep to do when friends come over, is that there’s no cooking required.

That’s right. All you’ll need to do is to whip up a solid batch of guacamole, add a bunch of additional mix-ins, then stuff it into cleaned bell pepper halves.

That’s it! With very little work, you’ll have an hors d’oeuvres or side dish that looks beautiful and fun.

Here’s a little more detail.

Step 1: Prep your veggies

The most time-intensive step in this recipe is actually getting the vegetables ready: de-stemming, washing, and chopping the kale, dicing the zucchini and onion, preparing the pepper halves, and so on. Tackle that step first, and the rest is easy.

Step 2: Prepare the guacamole

The guacamole in this recipe is quite simple: lime juice, salt, and a pinch of crushed red pepper flakes. When it comes to guac, I tend to think that less is more.

If you wanted to add a pinch of cumin or coriander, you certainly could. I give that option in the recipe card.

Step 2: Add the kale

Next, you’ll add a heaping cup of chopped, curly kale to the guacamole. This isn’t enough to turn the guacamole into salad! It’s just enough to make this recipe very green and very nutrient-dense.

Step 3: Fold in the “confetti”

Here’s the fun part: folding all sorts of colorful additions to the mashed avocado and kale!

Step 4: Stuff your peppers

As you prepare vegetables in step 1 of the recipe, you’ll trim, seed, and cut in half lengthwise some red bell peppers.

The next step is simply to pile your confetti guacamole filling into those pepper halves. If you’d like a pretty means of presenting the dish to friends, you can serve the halves over a bed of chopped kale.

Lots of color to feast the senses on!

When I first prepared this recipe, I wonder if I needed to “massage,” or marinate, the kale, as I do in so many other kale salad recipes.

Actually, I think that the guacamole provides so much creaminess in the recipe that dressing the greens isn’t a totally necessary step.

If you wanted a finishing touch, however, you could drizzle your entire platter or plate with some of my vegan Italian dressing, Champagne vinaigrette, sweet & tangy orange tahini dressing, or Greek vinaigrette.

Can the guacamole stuffed peppers be made ahead of time?

Much as I’m a huge fan of make ahead recipes and vegan meal prep, I think that this is a recipe best served directly after it’s prepared.

There are some tips and tricks to storing guacamole, but I always thinks it tastes the most vibrant when it is fresh.

Plus, one of the advantages of this guacamole stuffed pepper recipe is that you really can whip it up at a moment’s notice.

If you would like to get a head start on the recipe, however, you can chop the vegetables and drain your chickpeas ahead of time. Assembly at that point will only be easier!

Serving suggestions and accompaniments

I can think of a bunch of accompaniments that would be lovely with the guacamole stuffed peppers.

Here are a few of my ideas of recipes that you could pair them with, either for a meal or for an appetizer spread:

• Sweet potato skin nachos
• Corn & tomato soup
• Roasted red pepper sweet potato tortillas
• Sweet potato nacho fries
• BBQ soy curl sandwiches with cabbage apple slaw
• Vegan black bean butternut nachos
• Loaded garlic kale potatoes
• Artichoke white bean wraps
• Vegan pumpkin skillet cornbread
• Hearty vegan “chicken” bean chili

A garnish of toasted pepitas or extra chopped cilantro on top of the pepper halves is a nice touch, too!

It’s really fun when a recipe that has lots of appeal—guacamole—can be up-leveled in such a way that it’s even more nutritious.

That’s the effect that folding legumes and lots of veggies into a beautiful, creamy batch of guacamole has. I hope that you and your loved ones will agree!

xo