Keeping Hot Peppers for Later
My Dad sent a nice bag of hot peppers home with us when we visited family in New York recently. He had a new variety called ‘Inferno.’ I asked if they were really all that hot and he said, ‘They have a little bit of heat to them.” If my Dad says they have a little bit of heat, then they are probably too hot for me!
Tom likes hotter peppers than I do, so he was quite happy with the ‘little bit of heat’ those peppers provided for his meals. But he couldn’t eat them up fast enough and I knew they would be going in the compost if I didn’t do something with them. We have hot peppers in the freezer, pickled and canned, and dehydrated for sprinkling in chili, etc. This batch of peppers wasn’t large enough to warrant a canning session, so I decided to brine cure them as pickles and store them in the refrigerator for using up over the rest of summer and fall.
Pickled peppers
Pick a Peck of Pickled Peppers
Ok, it’s not a peck of peppers, but I did pickle them! Here is the recipe for brine cured hot peppers that you can leave in a crock in a cool place for a week or two, then store in glass jars in the refrigerator to use as you wish.
Brine Cured Hot Pepper Pickles
- 2 cups water
- 1/4 cup sea salt
- 2 cups distilled white vinegar
- 1 Tbs peppercorns
- 8 or so hot peppers of your choice, washed and sliced
Heat water in a small pan and add salt. Stir to dissolve salt then remove from heat. Pour salt water and vinegar into a glass bowl or small crock and stir to combine. Add peppers and peppercorns. Make sure brine solution is deep enough to cover all of the peppers. Cover bowl with plastic wrap or waxed paper. Place a plate on top that is small enough to set right on top of wrap and solution. You will need to put some weight on top of the plate to hold all of the peppers under the solution. Vegetables that are in contact with the air may spoil. After a day or two you can start dipping into your new pickled pepper stash! Don’t use your fingers, use a slotted spoon to remove pickles and prevent contamination of your brine solution.
Note: You can used cucumbers or other vegetables along with your peppers and they will pick up quite a bit of the heat from the peppers. I pickled cukes in with my peppers and they are delicious!
Have you ever pickled hot peppers? Do you have a favorite recipe?
have you ever pickled tomatoes(green).my grandfather did when i was a youngster,i tried a couple of times with out any luck,they were musshy.
Hi Walt!
I have made a really delicious green tomato relish that I love! (Ask Marilyn about it, she tried a jar) 🙂
I haven’t made it in several years because I have a lot left from the last time and I haven’t had many green tomatoes at the end of the fall lately. But Pickled Green Tomatoes sound really yummy!
If you want to try them again, sprinkle pickling salt over your cut tomatoes and leave them in the fridge for at least 3 hours. It will draw the water out of the tomatoes and make them crispier after pickling.
Thanks for stopping by! Hope you had a great weekend camping 🙂
we had a good time but your dad and i would have liked to be in the woods ,since it rained, i guess it filled in the time.althea’s canning whole tomatoes open kettle today.rai ning here this am.
Can’t say I blame you! Say hi to Althea for me, and best wishes with the tomatoes!
I use a sweet pickling recipe to pickle and can anything I can’t eat from my garden…squash, onions, zuke…etc..all together. Use a water bath so I don’t have to refrigerate them. One yearI used the same to pickle some habaneros I’d grown..too hot for me.
Then, faced with the fact they sat there for a year because, let’s face it, you’re not going to open it and finish it in a few sittings..I had an idea. That year while I was doing the sweet pickle thing with my excess veggies, I took one habanero and placed it on top of each jar and added about two tablespoons of the brine to a pint.
Came out awesome…the sweet bread and butter type pickles now had a wonderful bite to them. Of course, if you give them away…caution folks not to eat that top pepper!…
What a great idea, Phil! I haven’t got the nerve to grow habaneros 🙂 Even my husband, who likes hot stuff, can’t eat them alone. But this would be a nice way to add a bite without going up in flames! Thanks for sharing!
Hi Lisa, Copied your pickled pepper recipe down as it sounds very uncomplicated and a great way to use up garden hot peppers. Have a ? – should the brine cool before you add the peppers to the crock or does it really matter?
thanks
Linda
Hi Linda,
Hope you like them 🙂 The brine doesn’t need to cool first. I’ve always added it warm and find that it helps them get ‘working’ a bit faster…meaning that I get to eat the pickles faster! Best wishes!