How to Freeze Fresh Peppers

Gardeners will have no trouble telling you that pepper plants are quite the producers. One plant can yield a dozen or more peppers, easily leaving you with more vegetables than you can possibly cook with before they go bad.

Or perhaps you're enticed by the colorful variety at the farmers' market. When fresh peppers are in season, they're quite inexpensive, so buying the sweet surplus seems like a great idea.

If you find yourself with too many peppers in your kitchen and not enough recipes in which to use them, but plenty of space in your freezer, the best course of action is to freeze them for later use.

Freezing peppers is an easy process that doesn't require any fancy equipment. Just follow this organized set of steps that will provide you with ready-to-use peppers for the coming months.

A Helpful Guide on Freezing Every Ingredient You Need

The Best Peppers to Freeze

Use this method to freeze either sweet bell peppers or hot chili peppers. Large bell peppers are best if sliced or chopped before freezing because they'll take up less freezer space and are ready to use straight from the freezer. Smaller chili peppers can be frozen whole if desired. (See below for prepping whole peppers.)

Freezing Peppers: To Blanch or Not To Blanch

Some recipes call for blanching peppers in boiling water for a couple of minutes before freezing, but my favorite method is to simply clean, chop, and freeze the vegetables. This makes the process extra speedy.

Blanching is recommended to preserve the color of certain vegetables like peas or spinach, but isn't necessary for bell peppers, which maintain their vibrancy without the additional step.

Health Benefits of Peppers

Sweet and spicy peppers add a ton of flavor to many recipes while also providing great nutrition. The benefits of incorporating bell peppers into your diet include vitamin A, folate, iron, and plenty of fiber, at just 15 calories per 3-ounce serving.

Other spicy and milder peppers have similar benefits, and their spiciness isn't actually a "taste" but a "feeling;" the capsaicin in the peppers creates a response in our cells that our brain reads as "being burned," so you feel the burn, but don't taste it. To prep hot peppers for freezing, wear disposable gloves and don't touch your face.

Tasty Ways to Use Frozen Peppers

You have a bag or two of frozen peppers sitting in the freezer—now what? While the frozen peppers don't lose flavor, they can be mushy once defrosted and do best in recipes that call for cooking, like these stir fries, casseroles, and soups.

• Sautéed Garlic-Herb Bell Peppers
• Easy Chicken Fajitas
• Chicken Stir Fry With Bell Peppers
• Unstuffed Peppers Casserole
• Bell Pepper Omelet

Some people find that semi-frozen chunks of peppers are delicious when dipped in hummus or ranch. If the lack of crispiness doesn't bother you, they're perfectly fine to use uncooked in salads and wraps, but we recommend using your best fresh peppers if you can.

When to Toss Frozen Peppers

Discard any frozen peppers that:

• Are encased in a lot of frost.
• Feel mushy and soft while still in the freezer—this might indicate that the freezer isn't working at the right temperature, ideally 0° F or less.
• Have surpassed six months.
• Have a lot of air in the freezer bag.