Top uses for hot peppers

It's mid August and I have an abundance of hot peppers. Due to Peppergate 2023, they aren't exactly the peppers I expected... I have a lot of hot banana peppers and a good amount of jalapenos too. It's a great excuse to write up a post about my favorite ways to preserve hot peppers.

Pickled hot peppers

Pickled hot peppers are my highest priority. We always have a jar in the fridge, they replace those little "old el paso" jalapeno jars we used to buy a lot. I use them whenever I need to add a "fresh" hot pepper in a recipe, including chilli rellenos casserole which is a favorite here.  The NCHFP, which is my source for most straightforward canning recipes, has a decent recipe here. I usually favor jalapeno peppers for this recipe but any type works.

Pickled hot peppers in the second jar from the left

Dried hot peppers

The easiest way to put up hot peppers is to simply dry them. Using a needle, I thread them onto sewing thread and hang them in my kitchen. It's easy to tear one off and crumble it in a recipe for extra kick. I usually use small red chili peppers for this. It's great for smaller quantities of peppers, when there isn't quite enough to can.

Cowboy candy

Cowboy candy is a recipe that seems very popular in the US. It's sweet, spicy, and pickled all at the same time. Given the amount of sugar in it, it's a treat we eat in moderation - a tablespoon of cowboy candy on the side sure perks up wintertime meals. For special occasions, it's a great cracker topping and goes well with cheese, too. I heard some people eat it on ice cream but I'm not too sure about that. It's definitely a recipe worth trying once, it's unusual. I like to mix up the peppers I use in it, if I can have a mix of red, green and yellow, it makes a really attractive gift jar. There are lots of recipes online; here is one from Ball which is another source I trust for safe canning recipes.

Jalapeno poppers

Jalapeno poppers (or this, year banana poppers) are a great side dish. The cheese stuffing balances out the heat of the peppers. There are tons of recipes online, here is a simple vegetarian one I have been using this year. I usually make a big batch, we have a couple with our supper and I freeze the rest of the batch in food saver bags for special occasions. By packing them in a long skinny food saver bag, I can take out a couple and reseal the bag. 

Hot banana pepper poppers on the lower left

Fermented hot sauce

Over the last year I have been experimenting more with fermenting vegetables, and I just made my first fermented hot sauce using hot banana peppers and jalapenos. Fermentation is very low effort compared to canning so I am very keen to practice it more. Here is the basic recipe I used for my first hot sauce fermentation. I am looking forward to experimenting with it more but I really love the results. 

In all your other canning recipes

It's also great to have peppers on hand because they are a common ingredient in all kinds of other canning recipes that I make in late summer and early fall - pasta sauce and salsa in particular. On the salsa side of things, I love to use our peppers in my ground cherry salsa or green tomato salsa.