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Roasted Peppers: Step-by-Step With Photos
Peppers on the Grill
Roasting Peppers Is Easy
You can go to the store and buy a can of diced or whole mild green chilies to use in a variety of recipes. The cost for a 4-ounce can is about eighty-five cents for the chopped chilies. That works out to $3.40 a pound! As I recall, the whole ones cost more.
Instead of that, you can have fresh roasted peppers, the same thing as they sell in the store, (only better!) for much less, and know it's absolutely fresh, with no added burden of salt for those who may need to watch their salt intake.
Cook Time
Ingredients
- As many as you have or want of Ripe Peppers:, Red, Green, Orange, or Yellow Bell Peppers; Anaheim or other chili peppers
Instructions
- Wash all the peppers
- Method 1: Pre-heat a barbeque grill, and using tongs, arrange peppers evenly on the grates.
- Method 2: Electric ovens: Set oven to 'broil' setting; place peppers on a cookie sheet, and move an oven rack up just under the broiler/heating coil, with just enough clearance for the peppers and the cookie sheet
- Method 3: Gas ovens: Set the broiler pan to its middle setting so the peppers do not contact the burner or the flame directly
- Watch the peppers closely! You want the skins to blacken, but do not allow them to start to smoke or catch fire. As they blacken, using tongs and an oven mitt, turn them over so they are done evenly on both sides.
- When the skins have blackened fairly evenly, using tongs, remove all the peppers to a paper bag, and roll the top shut. Allow the bag to sit for about 5 minutes. When the peppers have sat in their bag for the 5 minutes, take them out, one at a time (leave the others in the bag until you are ready for them).
- Use your fingers and a sharp knife to skin them. The heat and blackening will have made the skin blister up, and it is very easy to remove. Once the skins are off, cut off the stem end, and remove the seeds. (It is trickier if you want them whole--I usually slit them open down one side.)
Food Safety Note:
Peppers are a low-acid food, despite the fact that they can induce a severe case of heartburn.
Therefore, it is not considered safe to do home-canning of peppers. Either use your prepared peppers at once in a recipe, or freeze them instead.
Peppers can be tray-frozen on a non-stick cookie sheet, then once frozen, they are easily lifted off for storage in a freezer bag. By tray-freezing, you have the individual peppers remain separate, so you can grab just what you need for a recipe, instead of having them all frozen together in a big clump.
To Seed Or Not To Seed?
For most dishes, you don't want the seeds, especially with Bell peppers, where seeds would just be annoying in the dish.
For chili peppers, if you are going to make salsa, removing the seeds is optional, depending on how spicy-hot you want it--most of the heat is in the seeds.
How Should You Use Your Roasted Peppers?
Let me count the ways!
- add red roasted bell peppers to a fried eggplant sandwich
- use roasted Anaheim chilies for chilies rellenos
- add to salsas
- add to burritos or tacos.
Enjoy! It's always better when you make it yourself.
© 2012 Liz Elias
