7 Methods for Preserving Peppers

Garden-grown peppers don’t get nearly the press that they should. Much like homegrown tomatoes and most other vegetables, peppers from a backyard plot taste so much better.

For those who are patient and wait for the pepper plants to get into the groove in very late summer or early fall, the rewards are huge. Pepper plants take a while to get going, but when they do, the harvests are incredible.

As with summer squash, cucumbers, and green beans, even a small stand of pepper plants can provide more peppers than can be eaten fresh. It’s nothing to get stressed about. All the better, it means there will be plenty of peppers to preserve for later.

Whether spicy or sweet, fresh peppers have lots of potential for being successfully preserved to provide distinctive homegrown flavor for months to come. Options abound.

Freeze them

In general, freezing is one of the favorite options for preserving most vegetables. This method tends to keep most vegetables—not cucumbers or squash—closest to their fresh form. Lots of veggies require blanching before they are frozen, but peppers don’t. It’s as easy as cutting the peppers up as they would be for a dish and putting them straight in the freezer. They’ll use a little crispness, but the flavor will still shine.

Source: The Purposeful Pantry/YouTube

Dehydrate them

There are many iterations of dried peppers. Peppers with thin skins can be strung up and hung in the sun to dry, or bell peppers and thicker-skinned peppers can be cut into pieces and put into a dehydrator. The dehydrated peppers can be put into wet dishes like stew or soup, and they’ll rehydrate. They can be made into chili flakes to be sprinkled on dishes, and they can be pulverized into seasoning powders.

Ferment them

Peppers do well as a fermented food. Lots of hot sauces are fermented peppers that get liquified. The fermenting process adds a pleasant complexity to the hot sauce. It’s also possible to simply ferment the peppers in brine and eat them in cut pieces or even whole. Home fermenting doesn’t require all the steps that canning stuff does, and it adds nutritional value to the food.

Pickle them

Pickled peppers, both sweet and spicy, are a perfect complement to so much good stuff. We get them next to take-out pizzas. They cuddle up so nicely next to a sandwich. We love them on nachos, chili, and more. Refrigerator pickles will last a good couple of months without issues. Just fill a jar with peppers and a couple of cloves of garlic, sprinkle in a little salt, and pour in vinegar until it covers the peppers.

Roast and oil them

Roasted peppers change the game big time. They are so delicious, and marinated roasted peppers are even tastier. It can either be roasted whole bell peppers or spicy peppers. They should be peeled before they are packed into a jar. Then, as we use vinegar for pickles, fill the jar with olive oil, pressing on the peppers to make sure all the air is out. They’ll keep like this for a good while in the fridge, or they can be frozen for long-term storage.

Jelly them

While we tend to think of traditional fruit and berries for jelly, there are lots of other items that make great jelly, peppers being one of them. Pepper jelly is usually a mixture of spicy and sweet peppers. Otherwise, spicy peppers are added to loads of fruit jellies to make combinations like peach and jalapeño jelly.

Source: Chili Pepper Madness/YouTube

Relish them

We might associate relish with cucumbers more than pepper, but pepper relish is delicious. It can be either sweet or hot, or a customized combo. This makes those peppers spreadable for serving on sandwiches, toast, and whatever else. It’s got a lot of vinegar, so it will store well in the fridge for a while.

Peppers are a rewarding vegetable to grow. The harvests continue a little further into fall than tomatoes, and there are so many fun varieties to try. It’s also great to know there are tons of great methods for preserving them and enjoying them for months to come.

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• Playing with the Year’s Jalapeño Harvest: What to Do with So Many Peppers
• Banana Peppers 101: How to Grow, Harvest, and Eat These Flavorful Peppers!
• How to Smoke Your Own Salt, Peppers, and More
• 5 Surprising Things You Can Pickle

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