3 Simple Ways To Dry Your Peppers

There’s a million ways to prepare a pepper. Stuffed, ground, sliced—any way you can think to do it, you can. Drying is a popular way to prep peppers for storage, but you can also dry them for your dishes. This process gets rid of the excess liquid inside and packs the flavor in a smaller space. To take advantage of this, here are three simple ways to dry your peppers.

Air Dry

If you live in an arid part of the world, the easiest way to dry your peppers is by hanging them outside. You can do this by using a needle and thread through the stems. While this is a long process—taking about three or four weeks—it requires no additional equipment and allows the process to occur naturally. Hang your peppers somewhere the sun will hit them throughout the day, but also in an open space so the breeze will get to them too.

Dehydrator

For this process, you’ll want to choose the size of your peppers carefully; the bigger they are, the longer they’ll take to dry. You can remedy this by cutting them into smaller pieces. Move the screens in your dehydrator often, as sitting too long on one hot surface can cause the peppers to burn and lose their flavor. You can expect to spend anywhere from 4-12 hours drying your peppers this way.

Oven

The quickest way to dry your peppers is by throwing them in the oven at a low temperature. You’ll want to check on them every 30 minutes or so to make sure they’re not burning. If you have peppers of various sizes, remove the smaller ones as they finish and keep checking on the big ones. Overall, depending on the size, this process may take an hour or two. This is the process we use at Don Emilio to make our delicious peanut salsa Macha.

Now that you know three simple ways to dry your peppers, you can throw them in a dry container away from the sun to preserve them. Conversely, you could grind them and use them as a spice in your next dish. Whether you air dry, dehydrate, or bake your peppers, you’re sure to add great flavor to your meals. And if you change your mind and decide you want to rehydrate your peppers, that’s pretty easy too!