Red and yellow peppers froze on the vine

November 22, 2014 1:43 PM

I thought that we had harvested all the peppers that were going to ripen. I was wrong.

I just picked about ten pounds of ripe peppers that have been frozen and thawed and refrozen on the vine -- red chiles, poblanos, yellow bells, jalapeno-ish, etc. They are intact, soft, and full of water. I'm guessing that the cell walls burst. They feel kind of gross, but look excellent.

Can I do anything with these? I hate to waste them They look good. Can I roast them? Dry them? Freeze them? Pickle them? Cook with them? Help!

posted by WyoWhy to Food & Drink (4 answers total)

I imagine they're just not going to be crunchy. I would (personally) cook them and eat them, but only in applications where crunch was not a factor, like soup. Maybe a salsa with the spicier ones - either raw or a "roasted pepper" kind of situation.
posted by papayaninja at 1:47 PM on November 22, 2014 [1 favorite]

Dice them up and freeze them.

You can do sloppy joes (so yummy)
Put them in sausage and peppers
Make a nice sauce out of the red/orange/yellow peppers, a bit of oil, vinegar salt, pepper and serve with couscous and shrimp.
Spice up some black beans
Sofrito

You see how this works...
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 2:01 PM on November 22, 2014

I freeze all my extra peppers for later use - I wash/dry them and throw them in a zip-top bag whole. They're soft when thawed, but really only as soft as a sauteed pepper. They work just fine for everything but being stuffed.
posted by Lyn Never at 2:17 PM on November 22, 2014 [1 favorite]

I would definitely recommend making sweet hot pepper jelly.
posted by 256 at 5:47 PM on November 22, 2014