When you have a glut of peppers, you want to save your harvest to enjoy in the future months to come.
Here are our favorite 7+ ways to preserve peppers now:
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Roast Chile Peppers:
Roast or grill until charred, chill, peel & de-seed, use some now and freeze some for later! Great for making green chile stew, for topping pizza, dips, in burritos, eggs, served over mashed potatoes, you name it!
Try some of our green chile recipes »
Cowboy Candy, shown above, before brine was poured in.
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Pickled Peppers:
Nothing beats a spicy pepper in the heart of winter to warm you up! They are great on sandwiches, as chile toppings, in dips, salsas, you name it!
Find our favorite Pickled Pepper Recipes »
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Make Ristras:
Red chiles dry nicely in a Ristra hung in a dry spot. Once dry, keep them in a dry, clean, well-ventilated area and use the pods for rehydrating, grinding, or adding whole pods to dishes. Learn how to make a Ristra »
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Fermented Hot Sauce:
Preserve your peppers in a simple salt brine, it brings out their amazing flavors and is probiotic, too! We have a couple fermentation crocks that we use to ferment peppers, but you can also ferment peppers in a glass canning jar with an airlock or just burp it every day or so (pressure can build up!) Add other veggies like carrots, onions and garlic for a more flavorful sauce.
Here are some easy fermented hot sauce recipes »
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Freeze Peppers:
Simply wash, dry and freeze your peppers whole. When ready to use, pull out whole peppers as desired. When frozen or slightly defrosted they are very easy to cut, so you can easily cut off the tops, cut in half, and optionally scoop out the seeds with a small spoon or butter knife. Once they defrost, they will loose their crispness, but they are still delicious and fresh tasting in salsas, stews, burritos, stir fries, you name it. You can also pre-chop peppers to put into containers in the freezer.
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Make Salsa:
Add lots of your peppers with tomatoes to make hot, delicious canned salsa that you can enjoy all year long. You can can salsa, freeze salsa and of course enjoy some of it right away. Here are our favorite salsa recipes »
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Dry Peppers:
Drying peppers is one of the best ways to preserve peppers if you're limited on space. Dried peppers can be stored in glass jars, or can be ground up into powders which can fit into small spice jars so you have a whole plant of peppers in an easy to use jar to sprinkle into everything. Learn how to dry peppers even without a dehydrator here »
But don't stop at just these eight ways,
here are 24 ideas on what to do with lots of peppers:
Harvesting peppers before frost
Have to harvest your peppers before a frost, but they're not ripe? Don't let them freeze outside on the plants, as they will turn to mush.
Pick your Peppers:
You can pick the peppers, and if they are close enough to ripe, they may turn color on your counter. Many peppers like jalapeños are often picked green, so enjoy them green – you'll find that super hots are still very hot and still have great flavor when not fully ripened. You can also hang them in Ristras to help them ripen and provide good airflow.
Hang whole plants:
Some people pick the whole plant and hang it upside down in a dry warm area. The peppers will continue to ripen on the plant this way. But you need room and it can be messy!
