What to Do With Your Extra Peppers
Whether your garden-variety Pepper plants are having their best year yet, or you went a little overboard buying your favorite greenhouse-grown Peppers at the grocery store, we have lots of great ideas for what to do with Bell Peppers that have started piling up in your kitchen!
We’ve put together 7 unique Pepper recipe ideas that will help you make the most out of your abundance of Peppers. From sizzling Pepper soup to veggie-filled baked goods, you’ll have lots of options to choose from so you can enjoy your extra Peppers to the fullest.
How to Use Up Your Extra Peppers
Here are 7 different ways you can use up your extra Peppers to stretch their life and avoid wasting fresh, healthy food.
Flavorful Soups
No matter what types of veggies are piling up in your kitchen, you can likely use them up by throwing them into a hearty pot of soup. Peppers are no exception as a flavorful ingredient in many Pepper soup recipes! Peppers make a delicious soup base or can also be added as one of many ingredients in a vegetable medley.
When adding Peppers to soup, it is best practice to roast the Peppers first and remove the charred skin. While some people may have a color or variety preference, whatever roasted Peppers you add to your soup will add incredible flavor.
Another benefit of making a big pot of Pepper soup is being able to freeze the leftovers for an easy weeknight meal option. When you make your soup, simply portion it out and freeze the portions in airtight containers so they’re easy to pull out when schedules get hectic.
Here are some of our tastiest Pepper soup recipes:
Roasted Pepper & Butternut Squash Soup
Bell Pepper Chicken & Dill Soup
Sizzling Stir-fries & Fajitas
Sliced Peppers are a staple ingredient in stir-fries and fajitas, so if you have an abundance of Peppers to eat up, these are the perfect meals for you to prepare! Simply slice up your extra Peppers, sauté them with your other veggies in a pan with olive oil, and add your stir-fry sauces or fajita seasoning to finish them off.
Most Peppers taste delicious in stir-fries or fajitas, so no matter the Pepper variety, these meals are a great option for using up any and all of your extra Peppers!
Check out our Chicken or Beef Fajitas recipe for a Pepper-packed meal you’ll want to make again and again.
Pickled Peppers
If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled Peppers, he probably had too many Peppers growing in his garden and decided to pickle and preserve them! When it comes to excess fruits and veggies, pickling is often a popular option to extend their shelf life and give our favorite fresh foods a new flavor. Pickled Peppers are an excellent ingredient to add to quesadillas, tacos, and salsa, as well as to top off pizzas, burgers, or even salads.
While you can easily pickle sliced Sweet Bell Peppers and Mini Sweet Peppers, you can also pickle a whole pack of our Shishito Peppers! Find our Pickled Shishito Peppers recipe here for the ultimate burger topping that will quickly become your summertime staple.
Homemade Hummus
Have you ever tried making hummus at home? This creamy chickpea-based spread is surprisingly easy to prepare from scratch, and it is a great way to use up some of your extra herbs and veggies. Hummus is also a versatile food that can be eaten in so many different ways, including as a spread, dip, or stuffer!
If you want to add your extra Peppers to a homemade hummus spread, it’s as simple as roasting the Peppers, removing the charred skin, and pureeing the roasted Peppers with the rest of the hummus ingredients. Any Pepper variety will add a delicious flavor to your homemade hummus, so whatever variety you need to use up, preparing a roasted Pepper hummus is a great option. And as an added bonus, hummus can be frozen in an airtight container for up to 6 months.
Check out our Hummus-Stuffed Mini Sweet Peppers recipe for directions on how to make your own roasted Pepper hummus (and stuff some Mini Sweet Peppers with it when you’re done)!
Stuffed Peppers
Speaking of stuffed Peppers – if you have lots of Sweet Bell Peppers, Mini Sweet Peppers, or even Long Sweet Peppers piling up in your kitchen, why not make stuffed Peppers for dinner? This is a classic meal option that will help you use up a handful of extra Peppers in one shot. It’s as simple as loading roasted Peppers up with your favorite ingredients like rice, cheese, ground meat, and diced veggies.
Check out these tasty stuffed Pepper recipes (and remember – you can always customize your stuffed Peppers to include your favorite ingredients):
Bell Peppers Stuffed with Tomato Couscous
Pepper-Filled Pancakes
If you want to switch things up and try making more nutrient-dense pancakes, add some of your extra Peppers to pancake batter! Just as you can blend diced apples or berries into pancakes, diced Peppers will add a satisfying sweetness to the batter while also giving your pancakes a nutrition boost.
The other benefit of making a large batch of pancakes is being able to freeze them for simple breakfasts on busy mornings. To freeze pancakes, simply place some parchment paper between each pancake so they don’t stick together and freeze in a sealed container or bag. When you want to pull them out of the freezer, simply pop them in your toaster.
For Pepper pancakes, we recommend using Sweet Peppers and avoiding Green Bell Peppers or Shishito Peppers. The sweeter the Pepper, the better the pancakes!
See our Sweet & Savory Pepper Pancakes recipe for a unique way to use up some of your extra Sweet Peppers.
Baked Goods
Would you believe us if we told you that there are many different types of baked goods that get even sweeter when you add Sweet Peppers to them? The answer is yes! This means you can add all your extra Sweet Peppers to the mix the next time you start baking brownies, cookies, cornbread, or even muffins.
As with pancakes, we recommend only using up your extra Sweet Peppers for baking purposes. Here are some of our favorite baked goods recipes that will help you clean up your extra Sweet Peppers while adding a bit more nutrient density to your favorite sweet treats:
Mini Sweet Pepper & Orange Cranberry Muffins
Chewy Bell Pepper Oatmeal Cookies
Granny Smith’s Bell Pepper Cake
Plenty of Pepper Resources
Want to learn more about this flavorful, versatile veggie? Check out more Pepper resources on our website!
The Pepper Lover’s Guide to Sweet Peppers
