After the pesky racoons ravaged my chile plants back in June, I did manage to find a few lonely plants tucked away in the sale section of the nursery. Even though it was late in the season, I still planted them and now I’m getting some peppers. YAY! My first picking was a few guero chiles (yellow hot or caribe) and three red cherry chiles. It wasn’t much, but it’s something. So what did I do with these beauties? I made some pickled peppers!
The following recipe for Quick and Easy Pickled Peppers was adapted from this Quick Pickled Jalapeno Pepper recipe. I didn’t have near the amount of peppers that the recipe called for so I had to adapt it to what I did have, and then make some minor adjustments for my tastes. This recipe was SO easy and the results were excellent!
Update August 2016 – Every since I made the first jar (the picture in the recipe), I’ve been making at least two jars each summer. This year my plants yielded a lot of peppers; therefore, I made one quart size jar. The peppers I used were mild banana peppers (yellow) and Sandia HOTS (red). Because I had almost 4 cups of sliced peppers, I adjusted the recipe. See the adjustment in Kitchen Notes below.
Quick & Easy Pickled Peppers
“*” See Kitchen Notes for more information or links to special ingredients.
- ½ cup water
- ½ cup distilled white vinegar
- 3 tsp. salt
- 2 Tbsp. sugar
- 1 ½ – 2 cups sliced chile peppers*
- 3 garlic cloves
- 6 – 8 leaves of fresh Mexican oregano (optional)
Cut the stem end off the top of the peppers about 1/4″ below the cap. If desired, cut out the seed core, but it doesn’t hurt to leave it in. Slice the peppers into desired thickness.
- Add the water, vinegar, salt and sugar to a sauce pan. Bring to a boil, stirring to dissolve the salt and sugar.
- Add the peppers and garlic. Bring back to boil over high heat, then remove from the heat and let cool for 10 minutes.
Scoop pepper slices into a clean jar*. Add the oregano leaves to the peppers. Pour enough liquid into the jars to cover the peppers.
- Let cool and refrigerator overnight before using. Keeps refrigerated for about a year.
- Enjoy!
Chile Peppers – This recipe can be used with just about any fresh chile peppers you can find. You could use just one type of chiles or mixed them up. My go to pepper is a hot pepper like jalapeño or spicy hot red/yellow pepper. This recipe would probably make great pickled bell peppers as well, but I haven’t try it.
Sterilized jar – Since this makes only one pint, or less than one pint, to prepare the jar, washed it, don’t dry. Heat in microwave on high for 2 minutes. Once the peppers are ready, remove from microwave and fill.
For a Quart of Pickled Peppers: – Increase ingredient to the following:
- ~4 cups sliced peppers
- 3/4 cup water
- 3/4 cup vinegar
- 4 tsp. salt,
- 2 Tbsp. sugar
- 6 garlic cloves
- 1 tsp. dried Mexican oregano or 14 – 16 fresh leaves
Suggested uses:
- Eat right out of the jar
- Add them to sandwiches or burgers
- Chop and add to a sandwich spread, salad, rice, pasta, beans.
- Add to nachos or salsa
- Spicy Mango Sauce
- Coconut Rice with Pickled Peppers
- Pico de Gallo
- Condiment for Fried Catfish
- Add a little of the brine to homemade mayonnaise, soups, dips, or just about any dish that needs a little spicy acid to make it pop.
- The possibilities are endless!
How do you use pickled peppers?
If you love pickled peppers and hot sauce as much as I do, then you’ll love these other versions:
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OH!! You can sterilize jars with microwave? Wow that’s a wonderful news! I had on idea – I thought I have to always boil them. I love this method, MJ. I can even do it with one jar and it’s so easy! I want to make pickled peppers one day. It looks easy and I can truly enjoy them when I’m ready for the spice level. 🙂
Well, let’s just say that I feel safe sterilizing jars in a microwave when it’s just one jar and I plan to put it in the refrigerator. I would NOT use the microwave is I were actually canning, sealing and storing in the pantry. At that point I would use a water bath. I know your spice level is go up “a little”, so you could make this recipe with a very mild chile, like pimento or banana peppers. Thanks for stopping by Nami!
Love ,Love,Love this recipe and so will my boys! Oh my goodness my boys love it hot and you cannot even imagine the amount of hot sauce I go through on a daily basis. What a great idea to pickle them! Now just need to find canning jars in HK… Have a super weekend!
So glad you managed to salvage some peppers in the end and this is a great recipe to preserve them.
Thanks Evelyne!
Such a clever way to both enjoy these delightful peppers and prevent waste — especially this time of year when we are harvesting heaps of late-summer vegetables and herbs, I love this reminder. (our neighbor popped by with a huge bag of basil from their garden last night – I’m making pesto and freezing it in ice trays :).
Thanks Kelly! You are so right…it’s just downright sinful to spend the time and energy growing something and not use it. So far, I’ve managed not to waste a thing that has come from my garden. Do you need some dried sage? I have tons! I’m going to give my basil a couple more weeks, then I’ll be pulling out the ice trays as well. 🙂 What nice neighbors you have!
Definitely a must in my life. Love these pickled peppers!! 🙂
Thanks Ramona!
You really love your peppers 🙂
Such a great idea specailly when you have heaps of them, will make some of this as sometimes when officemates give me lots of chillies they become waste.
Yes, I do Raymund! 🙂 Canning and preserving is definitely a way to prevent wasting food.
These sound wonderful and they remind me of the way my Mum used to pickle them sans water and sliced somewhat thicker. They are amazing for sure 🙂
My mother used to pickle whole jalapeno sans water as well. They were so good. Of course she would pickle several jars at once because we grew lots of jalapeno. This small batch works great for us now. Thanks for your comment!
Completely in love with this. We always have a jar of pickled peppers in the fridge but I’m thinking I should start making them instead of buying them. Thanks so much for this easy recipe!
Thank Jen! This method is so easy that I know I’ll never buy pickled peppers again. 🙂
Those pesky raccoons will eat anything!!! Love the idea of making pickled peppers. I appreciate the small batch recipe, too.
Thanks Liz!
The peppers are about done here. No pesky racoons, but I have a couple of pocket gophers that at some of the roots. I hope they were as hot and spicy as the peppers. I wish I had had enough to can.
I’m really hoping for a late freeze this year so I can get more peppers. A couple of plants are loaded but not ready to pick, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed.
I hardly do any pickling, but this seems easy and quick enough for me to try too. You have some really amazing chilli recipes, MJ.
Thanks Angie! Some preserving is so easy and, like cooking, can transform the flavor of an ingredient. Hope you do try is some day.
Welcome to the pickling world! Your pickled chiles look fantastic! I’m so glad to see a fellow pickler’s photographs and recipe! (I don’t know how acid your vinegar is, but if the brine is acid enough, you can boil the jars in simmering water and easily preserve all year long without the fridge). I envy you so much your beautiful chiles! I will add a box to my balcony next year and try to grow some from the seeds I dried from organic chiles I have recently bought.
I consider this quite a compliment coming from the Queen of Pickled Peppers! 🙂 The acidity of the vinegar I use is 5% which is enough for canning. Unfortunately, I didn’t have enough peppers to make a full pint, so I just made it a refrigerator recipe. But with that said, yesterday I splurged and bought a large quantity of yellow hots, from a local farmer and I’m going to make this again and then use the water bath so we can have a jar or two for the winter. I’ve already used up the jar in the picture. 🙂 That would be so cool to be able to grow peppers on your balcony! They do grow quite well in pots. You just have to be sure to fertilize them about once a month. Have a great week my friend!
Definitely gonna try this recipe….
good job my friend!
Thanks Dedy!
I’ve never pickled peppers but what a lovely thing to do. I’ve eaten them but never thought about how easy it might be to put them up at home.
Thanks Maureen! Yes, pickling peppers is easier than picking peppers. 🙂
I haven’t pickled any chiles yet, preferring to roast my Poblanos and New Mexico chiles. By the end of the season, I should have some hot chiles that I need to do something with. I’ll have a few Serranos, but these plants haven’t produced well. I should have quite a few chiles that were marketed as Thai chiles. One variety was called Kung Pao, but they seem very similar to Chile de Arbol. The other was sold as Thai Dragon, but they appear to be Capsicum Frutescens or Tobasco. These are tiny chiles, but the plants are prolific. I think that my best bet for these chiles is to use them to flavor vinegar, but I have also used them to flavor dry sherry. I think that these will be too hot to pickle like the ones you have just done. Another good use for the little chiles is to flavor oil for popping popcorn. It gives the popcorn just a bit of heat.
Wow! You’ve got a huge variety of chiles growing! I agree that the small, really hot peppers would be better to flavor vinegar, but I’ve never heard of flavoring dry sherry. Love that idea! Thanks for the great ideas!
These peppers look lovely, pickled ones taste awesome with roti 😀
Cheers
Choc Chip Uru
Oh that does sound good! Thanks Uru!
That’s awesome you were able to grow some peppers from those plants on the clearance rack – I have never had any luck with clearance rack plants! Thanks so much for this super easy pickling recipe!
I guess I finally got lucky with some pepper plants! 🙂
I love these pickled peppers. Definitely would go well with burgers. My mouth is getting watery just thinking about it. Haha! I hope you are having a wonderful week, MJ! 🙂
Thanks so much ray! How’s business? Still keeping yourself busy? Hope you’ve had a great week.