Homemade Marinated Piquillo Peppers Recipe

Piquillo Peppers are amazingly delicious, they have a spicy sweet smoky and almost buttery flavor when simply roasted, and marinated with salt and olive oil. Piquillo peppers are hard to find, because they received a European PDO (Protected Denomination of Origin) and cannot be commercially grown outside their Navarra, Spain region. But that doesn't mean you can't grow them in your home garden! Piquillo seeds can be difficult to germinate like many peppers, for best success, keep them consistently warm and moist at 80-90˚ F) but once they sprout, they grow into robust plants that are loaded with Piquillo peppers. 



Here's a simple marinated Piquillo Peppers Recipe so you can make your own roasted marinated Piquillo peppers for eating on crackers or added to recipes like potato soups and stews:

Ingredients:

Piquillo Peppers
(as many as you have - you can also use other red peppers)
Sea Salt (to taste)

Olive Oil




DIRECTIONS:

Step 1:
Roast the Piquillo Peppers
You can roast and blister the skins of these peppers on a grill or you can even put them on a gas stove top, or put them under a broiler. Turn to make sure all of the skin is blistered and blackened. Note: you can use any red chile peppers in this recipe, feel free to try this recipe with homegrown Pimento peppers, or the sweet and delicious Stocky Red Rooster italian peppers!

Then, sweat the Piquillo peppers by putting them into a glass dish with a glass cover and let them sit for 10-15 minutes. This will help the peppers to steam and sweat in the dish so their skins will loosen.

Step 2:
Peel the Piquillo Peppers
Once the peppers have cooled, you can peel the blistered charcoaled skins off with your hands, try to reserve any juices from the peppers and add to a glass bowl. Don't rinse under water, as this washes away flavor! 

Step 3:
Marinate the Piquillo Peppers
Dice peppers, and put peppers and any juice in a glass jar with a tight fitting lid, and sprinkle generously with sea salt, and then pour olive oil to fully coat the peppers. Stir, then enjoy! Keep these in the refrigerator to keep them fresh and use in recipes. You can store the marinated Piquillo peppers the refrigerator for up to a week.

You'll be amazed at the wonderful smoky buttery flavor that these peppers have, with a nice heat that's not too spicy.

OR... TRY THIS VARIATION OF A
PIQUILLO PEPPER RECIPE:

Here is a Basque recipe for roasted Pequillo peppers that’s fantastic:

Roast, peel, and seed the peppers, then sauté thinly sliced garlic in a generous amount of olive till lightly golden.

Remove the garlic to a small bowl with a slotted spoon, then pour most of the oil on top. Lay the flattened peppers out and drizzle with the oil and sherry vinegar, add salt and freshly ground pepper, and serve.

Once you try these Piquillo Peppers, you'll want to grow them every year! Sandia Seed offers these rare and special Piquillo pepper seeds so you grow your own, even if you don't live in Spain. Happy growing!