I have a bumper crop of peppers this year. Definitely more than I can eat but I don't have a dehumidifier.
Is there a way to dry them in my oven for use down the road.
Mostly Poblamo's and Anahimes if it matters.

I have done it in an electric oven, top rack, lowest setting on a cooling rack with a drip pan below. Depending on what the lowest oven setting is you may have to crack the door a little to keep the temp from getting too high and charring them.

Mike

Thanks

I too have an electric oven. I'll give it a try.

Wire rack and sunshine? Cracked oven door and lowest setting? Hair dryer and a cardboard box?

Lots of ways have worked for centuries, don't over think it.

Alton Brown of Food Network dried jerky with some househould air filters holding the meat bungee corded to a box fan.

Guess I didn't realize that simply asking if it could be done in an oven was overthinking it. Sorry...

My mom has always had good results with dicing them up fresh and putting em in the freezer.
I know that it's not drying them but they are just like using fresh peppers down the road.

I string my cayenne's and just let em dry that way.

This is what I do with my bell peppers, except I don't don't dice them. I just seed them and cut in halves or quarters.



And this is what I do with my cayenne's and Thai's.

I've not done it myself, but I've had the anaheim's roasted and frozen and found them pretty good. I think the skins were charred on a grill, covered in plastic, and the skins slid off. Then they were frozen. I've frozen jalapenos and serranos whole, then chopped them fine for cooking. Seems to work well. Not sure of the quality, but dried peppers are readily available and cheap at the grocery store.

OK,,,, I'll just throw these away and buy some at the grocery store.

Sorry myself, wasn't attempting to be a smart ass.

No harm done.
Doesn't matter anyway. I threw them all away and drove 30mi to the grocery store in town.
Turns out, they're not "readily available" everywhere.







Kidding of course, but they truely aren't available in stores around here per the blanket statement above.


I've got a bunch of em that are almost ready to pick. I'll try a few in the oven and see how it goes.
Might try freezing some too.
Thanks

We have frozen chili and jalapeno peppers with good luck. I just wash them and pop them into the freezer bag whole. When I that one, or more, out I just dice them up and into whatever sauce I am making. They are a bit "limp" but work fine in a sauce. FWIW, I also freezer sweet red and green peppers. Just dice and bag them up, works great.

You can wash, dice/slice, and put them on a sheet pan in the freezer. When they're all frozen pull them out and put them in a bag. That way you can take out what you want and they aren't one big, frozen block. We do the same with okra, but we bread it before freezing.

Last year I dried all my jalapenos and they all fit in just a couple of empty spice containers. They'll be used up before the end of the summer and I can do it again.

I did my peppers in the gas oven a couple years back. Worked alright but had to keep a close eye on them, door cracked, and honestly I don't think they got as dry as I would of liked.

If I grew more, I'd be tempted to spread them out on a window screen and set up a fan to blow on them. As hot and dry as it's been, I think it'd work great.

My wife (from southern AZ) and I pick up a bushel of Hatch chilis every year.

We have then roasted from our local source. We let them sit, hot, in the plastic bag for a few hours. Then the skin slides right off.

Some of them are frozen whole in freezer bags.

But 2/3 of them are rough chopped, and put into ice cube trays with a splash of water. Freeze, pop out, and keep in freezer bags.

We toss a chili ice cube or two in almost everything we cook all winter long; white chicken chili, red and green chili, eggs, corn bread, hamburger topping, burritos, chicken, beef, cat... you name it. We also toss a handful in a baking dish and cover with cheddar cheese and broil - makes a great topping for steak.

--Duck911

Had my wife pick up some hatch peppers so I could try the neat pork stew recipe that was up on here a few days ago. The store only had one bin of a few so they were not labeled mild or hot. Needless to say, the stew was so hot(spicy) it could have cooked itself. I finally managed about a good half plate full over rice, I could tell that the mix had great flavor but having to cough and gasp for breath and drink water too much didn't let me enjoy it fully. It did clear my sinuses and may have repaired(welded)any other body parts it may have contacted. I am a real fan of Mexican food but it has to be a warm glow thing. I think I will find a substitute pepper for the recipe. Any ideas.-Mike

Next time, Mike, try your peppers ahead of time. You can very easily substitute Anaheim, California, or New Mexico green chilies ( they're all pretty much the same ). Adding a few pasila or pablonos also add great flavor with little heat. If it is not hot enough you can add two to how ever many jalapenos it takes to get it where you like it.

Thanks, Sean. The last time I had this dish it was made by the Mexican mother of one of my employees. It was so damned good I foundered on it. This time I took a nice big mouthful and it literally put me on my knees. I will never trust another pepper as long as I live and my life felt like it was going to end last night. Since I don't live in a real target rich pepper environment, I will do the picking and choosing from now on. Anaheims may be what I am after and will look for some. Thanks again, Mike

Awesome idea!!

Damn this makes me think of the Hatch green chili brisket burittos at Ellas in Reserve New Mexico . 3 trips to town during last years Elk hunt. Now I'm hungry.

No idea what they would come out like, or how you would use them, but seeing as you have a surplus, how about making a couple of jars of pickled peppers?

I actually have pickled some Jalapeno's before. Turned out just like the one's you buy at the store.

The reason I wanted to try drying them is because one of the local stores used to sell Ancho's but they must have been too exotic for the locals so they quit. I really liked their flavor so I wanted to try making my own.

I tried a test batch in my little Camp Chef BBQ box a few days ago. I had trouble regulating the heat low enough so they never did dry out. I ended up peeling them and using them in a batch of black beans and rice.
I have a bunch that need picking right now but it's to dam hot to run the oven all day so I'm going to freeze them on a cookie sheet and bag em like suggested above.

I have a bunch of cayenne peppers hanging in the kitchen window that were strung on dental floss and hung up in the sun.
I half or quarter fresh peppers seed them and freeze in ziplock bags. They are good for 2 or 3 years to use for cooking.

This is the way I always dry cayenne's. They need to be ripe to do well, or at least mine did . I always try to keep some around although I rarely use the dry ones. I used to put it in sausage, but I have not made any lately. miles