Storing Chillis

Drying Chillis

It takes 2 - 3 hours of oven drying at approximately 45 ° C to dry habaneros and Bhut jolokia, and I cut the Rocoto into smaller pieces of course. This is not very cost effective for power usage, especially if you have a lot of chillies. So I purchased another larger domestic dehydrator which had 10 drawers, 5 of which I had to remove as the chillies were whole and large. This had a timer and I could leave it running constantly filling up the drawers as some chillies dried before others. I found the Scotch bonnet and the cayenne chillies the first to dry.

It worked out that 2 kgs of fresh chilies dried to 292 gms, and I stored these in paper bags in a warm dry place. This is a great way to keep your chilies, although there is a compromise on colour when making sauce.

Without a doubt the cleanest, easiest and most efficient way to dry your chillies is to use a purpose built food/fruit dehydrator. These machines tend to be marketed towards people that want to dry fruit but they work equally well for drying chilli peppers. You simply place your chillies on a series of small trays that stack on top of each other neatly and are gently warmed (usually for about 12-24 hours) by a steady heat from the base unit below. As you'd expect from a purpose built food dehydrator the results are nice evenly dried chillies with no possibility of burning your harvest (very easy to do when oven drying!)

Hanging Peppers To Dry

Hanging you chilli peppers up to dry is not only a traditional and effective way to preserve them but it also doubles as a great ornamental addition to your kitchen. Chillies are usually strung together and hung on a string or wire and bound closely together to form a long bunch, usually termed a chilli ristra.

How to Make a Chilli Ristra

Ristras are strings or arrangements of chilli pepper pods that are hung to air dry. They are thought to have originated in South America as a simple/practical way to dry out surplus chillies for consumption at a later date. More recently ristras have increasingly been used for decoration in kitchens around the world and in some countries they are even thought to bring good luck to the household.

There are a million and one ways to make a ristra however before you start you first have to make sure you have the right type of chili peppers. Ideally you want a variety with fairly long thin fruit such as the Cayenne. More fleshy varieties such as Jalapenos can be ristra'd however there will be a greater chance of the fruit rotting rather than drying out. If you do select a more fleshy variety be sure they are hung in an area with lots of sun and ventilation to maximize their drying time.

Though probably not the most traditional ristra making technique, this is probably the quickest and easiest. Here is what you need:

  • a good crop of fresh chillies
  • a length of fishing line
  • a large sewing needle

When picking your chillies try to ensure you leave a portion of the green stem above the fruit as this is where you will be threading them.

Start by putting a large knot in one end of your line and threading you needle onto the other end. Then it is simply a case of threading the chillies onto the line through the stems. However in order to ensure your ristra keeps a nice shape when threading the stems, hold your needle upright, point to the sky. When you thread the chillie stem on aim to have it at a 45 degree angle, with the stem higher than the pod. As you push the chillies down to the bottom of the line you may need to turn the peppers round slightly each time to avoid any empty areas in your ristra.

Once your ristra is finished all you need to do is hang it somewhere where it will get ideally plenty or light and heat. window is probably best. As the chillies dry out they will usually take on a much darker colour. Be sure to remove any pods that look as though they are going mouldy. If this is happening try to move the ristra into a more ventilated area until the drying process is complete.

Storing Dried Peppers

Once dry you can keep the chillies for a long time (they'll often last a few years) so long as you store them in a moisture free environment. This could either be hanging near a sunny window in the kitchen or in a air sealed storage jar or container, the key is to keep them dry. Tell tale signs of moisture is usually seen as a darkening in colour, black spots or mould. Should you see any of these you should throw them away.

Using dried chillies in your cooking is as easy as throwing them in whole or roughly chopping or crumbling into whatever you are cooking. If you have a large quantity of dried chillies you could make a batch of chilli flakes by grinding them using a bladed coffee grinder. One great benefits of preserving your chillies as chilli flakes is that they take a lot less room to store than when they are left whole.

How To Freeze Chillies

Be sure to wash your peppers thoroughly and allow to dry before preparing them for freezing. You can help them to dry by spreading them out and lightly patting with a tea towel.

There are a lot of questions about whether you should take the seeds out of chillies before freezing them. There isn't a right or wrong answer to this one. You can usually freeze small peppers whole, no de-seeding or slicing, just wash them, drain them and freeze them in freezer bags.

For larger varieties or some crops that have large internal membranes with loads of seeds I opt to slice them in half and de-seed them prior to freezing. The choice of de-seeding or not is purely yours.

If chopping the chillies they can sometimes freeze together inside the freezer bags into a big solid chilli ball which is rather unhelpful when you want to take one or two out of the freezer for cooking. To avoid this, first lay out the chillies on a backing tray and place in the freezer for 2 hours.

Once frozen remove them and bag them up into sealable freezer bags before popping back in the freezer. Be sure to label the freezer bag with the variety of peppers/chillies and the date you froze them.

How Long Do Frozen Chillies Last?

Consult the manual of your freezer and it will probably say fresh fruit and vegetables should be used within 3 months of freezing. Peppers that have been frozen for up to a year, have had no taste loss.
A Quick Tip: Use Ice Cube Trays

If you always tend to use finely chopped chillies when cooking then it can make a lot of sense to chop them prior to freezing them and split them into portions of similar size to what you use in cooking.

One great way of making frozen chillies easier to cook with is to put freshly chopped chillies into an ice cube tray with a enough water to cover them and freeze. Next time you are cooking and want some chilli just pop in however many chilli cubes you need!

Blanching Peppers Before Freezing

All vegetables naturally contain enzymes and bacteria that over time destroy the nutritional value and flavour, even when frozen. If freezing larger, softer fruit like bell peppers or sweet peppers it can pay to blanch them in hot water prior to freezing. This will kill off the enzymes and bacteria meaning they'll keep longer in the freezer and taste fresher when used.

To blanch peppers you'll need to remove the stems, cut in half and de-seed them. Bring a pan of water to the boil and plunge in the peppers and remove after 1 minute. Immediately place the peppers in a bowl of ice cold water (to remove the heat and stop them cooking further). Drain off thoroughly before freezing as usual.