Tips On Freezing End-of-season Peppers

In this video, Betty demonstrates how to freeze end-of-season peppers from the herb garden. We cleaned out the herb garden and harvested the tomatoes and peppers. I had more peppers than I could use at the moment, so I decided to freeze them. I had 2 green peppers, 1 red peppers, and 6 jalapeno peppers, but this method of freezing will work for any type of pepper. First, wash the peppers and chop them into the size that you will want to use later on. I chopped my green and red peppers in an average-sized chop, but I made the jalapenos into a fine chop. You may also cut peppers into strips or halves.

All fruits and vegetables contain enzymes and bacteria, which will continue to grow after they are picked. You need to stop the growth of the enzymes and bacteria by blanching the fruits and/or vegetables. This involves boiling the fruits and/or vegetables and then quickly cooling them. For the average-chopped red and green peppers, I boiled them in each for 1 minute. Then I cooled them each for 1 minute. For my tiny jalapenos I boiled them only minute, and then cooled them minute. For strips, you need to boil them for 2 minutes and cool 2 minutes, and for halves, you need to boil them 3 minutes and cool 3 minutes.

Once the peppers are blanched and cooled, place them in tight-sealing plastic freezer bags. Try to get all of the air out of the bag. I inserted a straw at the very end and sucked as much air out as possible. Next, label your freezer bags with the contents and the date. Freeze, until you need all (or part) of the frozen peppers.

You may follow this same procedure for onions. Sometimes you have fresh vegetables of various types that will go bad before you can use them. You may follow the guidelines in this video for freezing most vegetables.

I hope this video helps you!