Learn how to sauté peppers and onions in 15 minutes! Make sautéed veggies just like your favorite Mexican restaurant serves onions and peppers for fajitas. This is a crowd-pleasing vegetable side dish for potlucks, steak dinners, sous vide shrimp, and chicken sandwiches. Even add them to pizza! Let’s sauté…
The best sautéed peppers and onions recipe because…
- Easy to make ahead. Whip them up during a WFH lunch break or when the kiddos are out of the kitchen during the day. Then quickly reheat sautéed peppers and onions for 3-5 minutes on the stove in a pan to serve on the side of steak dishes, or in fajitas or quesadillas.
- Restaurant-style onions and peppers side dish. These are exactly the same quality you’d expect out at your favorite Mexican restaurant served in a sizzling hot pan with steak or chicken fajitas.
- Serve it as a veggie side for a crowd. Sautéed bell peppers and onions are delicious alongside flank steak and sous vide porterhouse.
- Easy to learn recipe. Even if you always burn onions and peppers on the stove, you’ll be able to confidently cook them with my recipe tips and step by step photos.
- This recipe won’t burn!! Woohoo!
Ingredients for this recipe
You need just a handful of ingredients for this vegetable side dish…
- olive oil
- yellow onion
- red pepper, yellow pepper
- salt
- butter
See tips for cutting peppers.
How to sauté peppers and onions
Now I’ll walk you through the step-by-step recipe — it’s literally only 2 steps! — for this perfect side dish.
Step 1. Add all ingredients for the onions and peppers to a large pan or large skillet on the stove, on medium-high heat. Sauté all ingredients (except for the butter) for ~5 minutes, stirring regularly.
Step 2. Add butter and cook for another 5-10 minutes, stirring regularly. Remove from heat before sautéed onions and peppers brown. They are done cooking when the onions and peppers are roasted on the edges and softened.
Other side dishes to check out include these simple roasted beets, easy sauteed carrots and onions, and caramelized shallots.
FAQs for making this side dish
If you have multiple burners going, it can be easy to forget you’re sautéing onions and peppers. (unless that’s just me, trying to throw dinner on the table during a busy week of recipe testing for Sip Bite Go.).
If for some reason the onions and peppers begin to burn, I have a trick for saving the recipe. It usually happens because the pan is getting a little too dry. Which can happen if you’re using a very large pan because there is more room to cook and they aren’t layered on top of each other.
Anyways, to save them, add 1-2 tablespoons of water to the pan, and reduce the heat to medium-low. You can also throw in an extra 1 tablespoons of butter. Cook until the liquid dissolves and the burning taste should mellow out and they’ll become more caramelized.
I say — get creative in the kitchen with layers of flavors and ingredients. Start with a protein like this sous vide ribeye or grilled skirt steak recipe.
Then add a sauce, like this peppercorn sauce, jalapeno ranch dressing, or white pizza sauce. (If you don’t want to make sauce from scratch, use Alfredo pasta sauce).
Finally, top your dish with this sautéed peppers and onions side steak topping. Serve with Italian stuffed shells, or one of these potato sides or pasta sides.
You can use any color of onions in fajitas—red, yellow, or white. Each type gives a slight variation in flavor, so try them all out and have the family vote on their favorite! Red onions tend to be sweeter, as do Walla Walla onions (used in this Sip Bite Go recipe demonstration) while white and yellow onions offer a more pungent flavor.
Skirt steak is delicious in fajitas, but you can also use rump steak, flank steak, or thinly sliced beef tenderloin. In fact, pretty much whatever meat you have in the house can be made to work in a pinch. They’re also great with smoked shrimp, too.
To make a quick steak, check out this recipe for air fryer filet mignon. With this onions and peppers side dish, plus this jalapeno ranch dressing, you’ve got a delicious meal.
Refried beans, roasted sweet potatoes, and avocado salad all make good side dishes for fajitas. Or try my make ahead Mexican salad — it’s bursting with vegetables, and the vitamin count for this already-healthy meal will begin to skyrocket!
Although traditional fajita recipes all call for peppers, there’s no reason you can’t break with tradition and try something new! If you don’t like peppers or can’t have them, try using zucchini ribbons or thinly sliced carrots instead. Mushrooms are another option, and will add some wonderful earthy flavor.
Are you a foodie, too?
Hey home chefs, are you as obsessed with delicious sautéed onions and peppers as I am? I could literally put them on everything! They’re in this recipe for crockpot sausage sandwich recipe, tasty homemade pizza with tri tip steak — aka my Philly Cheesesteak Pizza — and so many more restaurant-style meals here on Sip Bite Go.
Find me on Instagram @sipbitego so I can see how your cooking went, and see how you’re using your sautéed veggies.
People message me photos of their finished recipes and ask for tips all the time, so don’t be shy! It’s the highlight of my day to get a message from you.
For more deliciousness, subscribe to the Sip Bite Go channel.
New recipes and foodie guides….
- Tri tip (it’s so good!)
- Homemade pizza
- Smoked wings
- Traeger pizza
- Pan grilled chicken
- Bacon wrapped hot dogs
- Potato side dishes
- Pasta side dishes
- Baked brisket
- Sous vide frozen steak
- Cooked chicken temp guide
- Jalapeno ranch sauce
- Sous vide pork chops
- Coulotte steak
- GUIDE: How to make hamburger patties
- GUIDE: Aerogarden
- Best restaurants in Portland
Grill and smoker recipes…
- Grilled chicken wings
- Smoked pizza
- Smoked chicken
- Smoked tri tip
- Traeger pulled pork
- Smoked turkey breast
- Smoked chicken wings
- Smoked ham
- Flank steak marinade
- Skirt steak marinade
- Smoked mac and cheese
- Smoked chicken breast
- Grilled broccoli
Meat thermometer recommendations
Every home chef needs a reliable meat thermometer to cook food perfectly.
On Sip Bite Go, you’ll often see me using:
- Meater thermometer – a fancy wireless thermometer that connects to a phone app – gifted to me from a Traeger partnership.
- ThermoPro digital thermometer – which has a wire that connects the thermometer to a display box outside the oven/grill.
It’s like being psychic! The great thing about either of the thermometers above is that I don’t have to take the food out of the oven to know the temperature.
How to use ‘em… What I do is stick the digital thermometer in steak, pork, chicken, whatever… Then put the food in the oven, on the smoker, or grill.
While the meat cooks, it reads the temperature so I know exactly what temp meat is as it’s cooking. Without having to take it out and check. It’s really difficult to overcook food when you know exactly what temp it is inside!
Sautéed Onions And Peppers Recipe | Sip Bite Go
Ingredients
- ½ tbsp olive oil
- ½ yellow onion cut in half and sliced in ½” strips
- ½ red pepper cut in half and sliced in ½” strips
- ½ yellow pepper cut in half and sliced in ½” strips
- ½ tbsp salt
- 1 butter butter
Instructions
- Set a large pan or large skillet on the stove to medium-high heat. Add all ingredients (except for the butter) to make the onions and peppers and sauté for ~5 minutes, stirring regularly.
- Add butter and stir regularly while cooking for another 5-10 minutes. Remove from heat before sautéed onions and peppers burn. They are done cooking when the onions and peppers are roasted on the edges and softened.
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