With a small knife, carve jack-o-lantern faces into your peppers. Be careful not to place the facial features too close together, you need the pepper to still hold its form once cooked.
Place the carved peppers, top on, into an 8x8 baking dish and into your oven and bake for about 30 minutes. If you prefer a more crisp pepper remove them from the oven at 20 minutes.
In a large non-stick skillet, mix your sausage and beef, add onion, and cook on medium-high heat until the meat is browned and the onion is translucent.
Add your Rotel, garlic, salt, pepper, tomato sauce, chili powder, Italian seasoning, red pepper flakes, and rice. Mix well.
Spoon this filling into your cooked peppers until it is almost overflowing and top with mozzarella cheese.
Place the stuffed peppers back into your oven without the tops, for about 10 minutes or until the cheese is melted and the peppers are warm throughout.
Top with parsley (optional)
Notes
Storage Instructions:
You can store these stuffed pepper jack-o-lanterns in your refrigerator in an airtight container for up to 5 days.
You can also freeze them, however, I recommend freezing the filling separately from the peppers. The filling can be stored in an airtight and freezer-safe container for up to 4 months. I don’t recommend freezing the peppers because the jack-o-lantern’s faces will sometimes become soft when thawing. If you do freeze your peppers, carve the faces after thawing.