Making Pickled Peppers

When I opened the fridge and rummaged around on the condiment shelves for some pickled jalapeno peppers rings, I emerged with this in my hand.  This, my friends, is not good news.  One simply cannot run out of peppers.

The last few pieces in the last jar from last year.

There was none in the pantry either.  Time to get busy.  We've cored and seeded a multitude of peppers so far this year and put them up in the freezer.  Whenever we cook any dish requiring peppers, we grab a handful of the frozen ones if fresh aren't available.  Today, I'm going to make a batch of pickled peppers - both sweet and hot.  Russ and I like to eat them on top of red beans & rice, black-eyed peas & rice or other such dishes.  The tangy heat compliments beans & rice.  Let's go out to the garden and pick some peppers.

Poblano Peppers

I didn't pick a peck (a peck is a unit of measure equaling 2 gallons), but pretty close.  It is a mixed bag of poblano, chocolate, cayenne, and jalapeno.  We'll get them all washed up.

I love peppers!

I always like my peppers cut in rings for pickling.  They're just easier for scooping out of the jar with a fork.

Slicing up the peppers

Here are the sliced up sweet peppers:

Sliced and ready

And here are the sliced up jalapenos and cayennes.

A visual feast

The first thing you want to do once you have them sliced is to stuff them into some jars.  Really cram them in there.  Here is the batch of sweet peppers:

Sweet

And here are the hot ones.  Note to self:  We're gonna need more of these.  Much, much more.  But it's no problem as long as the peppers continue to produce and there are several months left in the growing season.

Hot

Then fill all of the jars up with water.  This is a neat trick I learned off the Internet somewhere that tells you a great way to calculate your liquid needed and therefore, your pickling spice ratio.

Filling jars with water

Use your hands or a colander to pour out all the liquid from your jars into a measuring container.

Pouring out the pepper liquid

In all it took 9 cups of liquid to fill the jars we're pickling today.  Pour out half of this and reserve the other half of the liquid as we're going to use it as part of the pickling liquid.

Pepper juice

Now we'll put together the pickling spices.  The recipe below calls for 2 cups pickling liquid (apple cider vinegar + water).  Remember, we have 9 cups of total liquid, so adjust the other spices up accordingly.  

Basic Recipe:

• 1 cup apple cider vinegar
• 1 cup water
• 1 tablespoon peppercorns
• 3 cloves garlic, crushed a bit to release the flavor
• 2 tablespoons coarse sea salt
• 1 tablespoon sugar

Apple cider vinegar in a big pot

And here are the ingredients to add to the pickling liquid.

Everything you need

Add all of your ingredients, bruising the garlic so that the flavors escape.  Let this heat up and then simmer for five or ten minutes.  

Simmering spices

Then we simply pour the liquid and spices into the jar.  The liquid amount should come out exactly right.

Filling the jars with pickling liquid and spices

There are many recipes that say just to put these in the fridge and that is fine.  That's what we do once we open them.  But we eat a lot of these and I don't have room in the fridge for them.  I store numerous jars in the pantry to eat over the winter.

I'm not certain this step is necessary, but I do it just to be safe.  I put them in a water bath, ensuring that I have a rack on the bottom of the pot to keep the jars off the bottom.  I make sure the jars are covered by an inch of water and then I bring the water to a boil.

Water bath

Once the water is at a rolling boil like below, I set the timer for 12 minutes.

We're rolling

When the time is up, I'll use the canning tongs to pull them out and allow them to cool totally.

Pickled peppers

Pickling peppers is easy.  We'll be making more over the next couple of months, but I'll put most of these in the pantry.  The quart jar is going right in the fridge to begin eating on right away!