Home storage is on the rise as people look to save money and eat healthier by growing and preserving their own food. Peppers are a popular choice for home gardeners, and can be preserved through canning, freezing, or drying. It is important to follow established recipes and procedures for food safety.
Home storage is becoming more common in the early 21st century after falling somewhat in popularity towards the end of the last century. More and more people are looking for ways to save money and eat healthier foods by growing and preserving more food. Peppers are popular with home gardeners, and preserving peppers can be done in a number of ways. They can be canned, dried, or even frozen, and each method has its own benefits and uses.
Canning as a way to preserve peppers is easy enough. Most importantly, have a clean work area and disinfect all equipment, jars and lids and use only undamaged jars and lids. Use only the freshest peppers you can find—don’t use ones that are wilted, moldy, or have rotten spots. Wash them thoroughly before using and use an established recipe from a reputable source, following it closely to ensure food safety. Failure to follow the recipe and its procedures, especially the processing instructions, can result in a potentially dangerous product. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) publishes a series of home canning guides that are available online from a number of places that have extensive information on recipes and processing.
Freezing is another way to preserve peppers. Choose peppers for freezing just as carefully as you would for canning. Frozen peppers are usually diced before freezing and later used in recipes, such as omelettes, chili, spaghetti sauce, and meatloaf, that call for chopped peppers. Cut the peppers to desired size with the skin open and freeze in smaller sized zip lock freezer bags. Fill the bags so that when they lay flat in the freezer, they are only about 0.5 inch (1.3 cm) thick, so the blocks can be easily peeled away from the resulting tile-shaped block when needed.
The last, and perhaps the simplest, of the common methods of preserving peppers, especially hot peppers, is to dry them, and while it is possible to expose dried peppers to the sun, this is not always practical in many parts of the world. , so many people rely on a food dehydrator. As with the other methods, choose only peppers that are free from rot and insect damage. Dry the peppers in a food dehydrator until they crumble easily and store them in tightly closed jars or zip-top plastic bags. Dried chiles can be ground up for use as a seasoning, or they can be reconstituted, for use in recipes, by soaking them in hot water.
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