How to Store Peppers–Fresh or Frozen

During our Summer CSA, our farm members receive all kinds of peppers: green and yellow and red bell peppers, lunchbox peppers, mild child peppers, and hot peppers. How to store all this pepper goodness?

If you’re planning to use your peppers within a week or so, place them in a sealed plastic bag and keep in your crisper drawer in your fridge.

If you want to save them for later use, peppers are very easy to freeze (and such a welcome sight when making chili in January!).

red lunchbox pepper in half pint

lunchbox peppers (sweet)

orange lunchbox pepper in half pint

lunchbox peppers (sweet)

jalapeno pepper in half pint

jalapeno peppers (medium to hot)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Freezing Bell Peppers

I most often freeze my bell peppers whole. I slice off the top and set it aside, remove the inner core/seeds from the pepper, then place the entire cored pepper into a freezer bag. Depending on the size of the pepper, I can fit anywhere from 6 to 9 into a gallon freezer bag. 

sweet green bell pepper

green bell peppers (sweet)

Back to those pepper tops! I chop them in about 1″ pieces, flash freeze them in a single layer on a cookie sheet, then place them in a quart freezer bag, which makes them all ready to go for that winter chili. If you don’t mind a little more work, you can slice or chop the entire pepper so it’s all ready to go for future use.

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