Ways to Preserve Peppers
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Got a bumper crop of peppers from your vegetable garden? Here are ways to preserve peppers to enjoy all winter including drying, freezing, and canning.
Peppers are so much fun to grow because there are so many tasty varieties to choose from. They come in numerous colors, shapes, and degrees of sweet to hot.
Growing peppers in cooler climates can be challenging. The short growing season, combined with cool, damp weather can result in plants that grow slowly. Often times they don’t begin producing a harvest until well into August. Just when they are hitting their prime…bam, the season ends.
To compensate, I tend to grow a lot of pepper plants in hopes of gathering a good harvest before frost arrives. If the growing conditions are right, and the summers are hot and dry like we’ve been experiencing lately, I will be happy with an unexpected bumper crop.
How to Preserve Peppers
After I have had my fill of grilled salsa, red jalapeño hot sauce, and fajitas, I begin preserving peppers to enjoy through the winter months. Here are some of my favorite ways to preserve peppers to enjoy all winter long:
Freezing Peppers
The easiest way to preserve peppers is to freeze them. Peppers are one of the few vegetables that can be frozen without having to blanch first. Surprisingly, frozen peppers do not turn to mush when thawed either. They do lose some of their crispness, but maintain the flavor of fresh peppers.
You can freeze raw peppers cut into strips for fajitas and stir-fries, roast them first, peel off the skins, remove the seeds, and freeze, and even freeze whole chili peppers. Wear gloves when working with hot peppers.
Jamie Oliver recently shared a clever way to use frozen chile peppers, “Simply pop them in the freezer as they’re fantastic finely grated directly from frozen, which creates a tasty, beautiful chilli dust that is great in cooking and marinades, or for sprinkling over pastas, salads, starters, antipasti, meat or fish dishes!!”
Thawed peppers can be used to make salsa, fajitas, or any cooked recipe where you would normally use peppers. Frozen peppers are easy to chop while partially defrosted.
Drying Peppers
Drying your pepper harvest is an excellent way to preserve peppers. Dehydrating concentrates the flavor of sweet peppers and heat of chile peppers.
You can add the dried peppers to soups, stews, or chilies and they will rehydrate as they are cooked. Dried peppers can also be crushed into pepper flakes or blended into chili pepper powder.
Home Canning Peppers
Most of the peppers I grow are used to make and preserve as salsa. I love having a shelf filled with jars of salsa to flavor meals all winter long until the garden produces again.
While salsa is a great way to use up that harvest, there are other ways to can peppers into shelf-stable jars for long term food storage. Here is a collection of safe canning recipes to preserve peppers, including salsas, pickles, and relish:
Traditional Zesty Salsa
A home canned salsa with tomatoes, peppers, onions, and vinegar bite for a classic zesty flavor.
Tomato Jalapeño Salsa
This safe canning recipe uses fresh lime juice instead of vinegar for a more authentic flavor.
Roasted Tomatillo Salsa
A great way to use up some of those jalapeño or serrano chili peppers is this delicious roasted tomatillo salsa home canning recipe.
Refrigerator Pickles
Quick pickles rely on vinegar and the cool temperature of the refrigerator to preserve them for a few months. You can chop and pickle any type of pepper with this easy recipe.
Pickled Jalapeño Pepper Rings
If you are aiming for longer-term storage, you can preserve pickled peppers using a water bath canner. This canning recipe is for jalapeño peppers, but you can safely swap the type of peppers used as long as the amount of peppers stays the same.
Marinated Roasted Red Peppers
Ripe red bell peppers are oven-roasted and preserved in flavorful red-wine vinegar, olive oil, and herb infused brine. This safe canning recipe is similar to the classic Italian marinated roasted red peppers.
Sweet Cucumber Relish
This sweet and tangy cucumber relish is made with cucumbers, peppers, onions, and flavored with an apple cider vinegar brine infused with pickling spices.
Zucchini and Bell Pepper Relish
In this recipe, zucchini is combined with sweet bell peppers, and onions for a sweet and slightly tart flavored relish that will dress up your burgers, sandwiches, and picnic salads.
Green Chile Peppers
You can preserve plain peppers with a pressure canner. Any type of pepper can be pressure canned using this method.
Both sweet and hot peppers can be preserved in several different ways. I hope you have found a way that works for you.
I find that peppers that have thick walls, such as sweet bells, jalapeños are excellent for freezing. Thin-walled cayenne, de arbol, and japones are easy to dry using a dehydrator. And of course, any pepper can be pickled or pressure canned into shelf stable jars for food storage.
What is your favorite method for preserving peppers? Let us know in the comments.
This article was originally published September 3, 2016. It has been updated with more information, recipes, and photos.
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While harvesting peppers, I slice, dice,etc. Mark a one serving amount in 1# plastic bag, put water in it & freeze. That way soup gets the water, but an omelet would not……mark bags well though.. ?
how do uou can your bell peppers?
Schreffler, There are two ways to can bell peppers: 1) If you are canning plain bell peppers, they must be pressure canned. Follow this pressure-canning recipe and use bell peppers in place of the Anaheim peppers: Canning Diced Green Chile Peppers. 2) You can also pickle bell peppers and can in a water bath canner with this recipe: Pickled Bell Peppers
Does anyone have a good recipe for preserving sweet italian red peppers to make rellenos during the winter months? I’m trying to keep them as firm as possible. Canning seems to make them mushy and doesn’t make them stuff able. Thanks!
Marilou, Have you tried freezing peppers?
For a different variation of this drying method I half and remove seeds. Smoke them over hickory at a low heat for a couple of hours then finish them in your drier. Countless friends of mine just can’t seem to get enough. Enjoy
I grow hot peppers each year and have been putting them up in vinegar. Will have to try a dehydrator with some. Last year I grew habanarro and ghost peppers. Now those are really warm to me. They are good in cornbread too.
Last year I grew some habaneros and dried them in a dehydrator. Then I ground them in a food grinder with a little salt and have been sprinkling them all over this year’s tomatoes. Yum!
This year I don’t have any hot peppers unfortunately. But I will be freezing all the mild ones I have! Haven’t heard of freezing them on a cookie sheet first before. Definitely going to try this idea very soon.
Growing up in Texas, I spent many summers stringing peppers for my mom. A warning! If your thread comes out if your needle, don’t lick it before rethreading it! ;). Thanks for the great tips!
Cynthia, Great advice! I would not have thought of that. 🙂
I too pickle hot banana peppers – yum! As with tomatoes, I like preserving peppers in a variety of ways, including freezing and drying (now that I’ve finally got a dehydrator!), which gives me a good range of off-season options.
Margaret, I wish I had more room to grow different varieties of peppers. There are so many delicious uses for them.
Hi Margaret,
Would you be willing to share your recipe for pickling the banana peppers?
Mike
Hi Mike, I don’t think Margaret will see your comment here. You can find her blogging at Homegrown – Adventures in My Garden.
I’m not sure if she has a pickled peppers recipe on her blog, but you can use the “Pickled Hot Peppers” recipe listed above to pickle banana peppers. I hope this helps! 🙂
I grow banana peppers and like to pickle them. They are tasty on an antipasto tray and in sandwiches.
Sounds delicious, Margy!
We have about 20 pepper plants – bell for roasting/marinating and salsa; hot for salsa, hot sauce and pepper jelly; and Italian sweets for cooking fresh (and freezing if there’s any left!).
Great idea about drying and grinding the chilies. We are growing some TRULY hot peppers this year (I’m talking scotch bonnet level chilies) and while I use a ton of serranos and the like to make hot sauce, some dried scotch bonnet powder would be great to have on hand as I use hot chili powders to sprinkle in the garden around bulbs and other things that the birds and squirrels and neighbor cats like to get into – they don’t like finding it at all! 🙂
Aimee, There are so many uses for peppers. Thanks for sharing. 🙂