We are using homemade sauce today...
1. Buy roughly 8-10 banana peppers, and cut tops off. De-seed, but don't throw all the seeds away.
2. In bowl, put ground hot sausage and sprinkle some banana pepper seeds back in for extra hotness. You don't need bread crumbs or an egg because the sausage is thick enough. Ground beef or sweet sausage is optional if you don't want to use hot sausage, and obviously bread crumbs would be needed for ground beef.
3. Depending on how big the peppers are, you might have to put a slit down the side to open them up somewhat for more sausage to fit in. Stuff the pepper with the hot sausage.
4. Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees.
5. Place now stuffed banana peppers onto a cooking tray or tin pan (9 x 14). If you choose the tin pan make sure you put something underneath as sometimes it may boil over slightly.
6. From here, cover banana peppers with red spaghetti sauce or marinara (we use Ragu Parmesan and Romano which believe it or not I recommend it). Sprinkle grated parmesan cheese over top, and/or any other seasoning (i.e. oregano, basil, or garlic).
7. Cover pan with tin foil.
8. Cook for 2 hours, and roughly about 15 before being done, we pull the peppers out to sprinkle with shredded cheese (we use a four cheese blend, but provolone or mozzarella will work just fine) and put back in to melt the cheese.
Can work great as an appetizer or boil some pasta to serve over top of. Once complete the actual sauce is pretty good too. Good luck and let me know how they turn out. Let me know if you have any questions.
jr11
