These simple Lacto fermented peppers are simple to make and can be preserved and used throughout the winter months in a cool area or refrigerator.
The sweet burst of summer can be tasted in sweet peppers. They just sparkle with flavor!
As you pick your sweet peppers, you may be wondering how to preserve them. Canning takes time and there seems to be an unending list of rules to follow. Lacto fermented peppers are a great alternative to the time consuming methods of canning.
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Preserving Methods for Peppers
One of our goals this summer was to grow and preserve as much food for an entire year as we possibly could. Spoiler alert... we didn't come even close. Yet, we have made great strides in understanding our gardens, soil, land, and the number of plants it takes to grow food for an entire year.
Melissa K Norris, a popular homesteading writer and podcaster, has a great resource that we found exceptionally helpful in planning our gardens. Her Family Garden Plan Book and the Family Garden Planner will walk you through understanding how to grow enough food for your family for an entire year. Find both her books here.
One of the plants we did plant quite a bit of was peppers. The goal was to create lots of salsa because that is what we commonly use as a family. Yet one thing I did not anticipate was that our pepper harvest was ready weeks before our tomato harvest. The gap in time was far too long to be able to successfully make the salsa that I had been hoping to.
So I was left to figure out how to preserve my overabundance of peppers.
Learning lacto fermentation has been a blast this year and fermenting the peppers seemed like an easy and delicious solution to my problem. The only issue was that when I set out to Google and my favorite homesteading authors, I couldn't find a clean resource on fermenting sweet peppers.
I rolled up my sleeves, started to do my research, and came up with a recipe myself!
Why Lacto-Ferment Peppers?
Lacto fermenting peppers is simple, easy, tastes delicious, and versatile to use.
Since there is no canning involved there is no risk or botulism. It also is a time saver! Simply add your water, salt, and diced peppers to a canning jar, let it ferment, and presto you're done!
How to use Lacto Fermented Peppers
- Add them to stir fry's
- Use in a salad
- Top your tacos with them
- Use them in grain or bean salad
- Add them to Italian sausage dishes
- Chop them up and add to chili!
- You could even replace 'seasoning blend' in many THM recipes (like this skillet recipe).
Basically, for any recipe that calls for peppers, you can substitute these Lacto-fermented peppers.
Ingredients for Lacto Fermented Peppers
Sweet peppers
Mineral Salt (Redmond Real is my favorite)
Filtered water
Seasoning (optional) cumin, peeled garlic, sliced onion; cilantro or parsley, cumin, etc.
Instructions for Fermented Sweet Peppers
Dissolve 3 tablespoons of salt into one quart of water. Set aside.
Rinse peppers with water and remove stems and cores. Slice/cut into thin strips or ½ to 1-inch sections. Place seasonings into a separate jar. Fill the jar with peppers.
Add in more seasoning. Fill the rest of the jar with peppers.
Leave approximately 1-2 inches of head space. Pour salt brine over peppers until covered.
Weigh peppers down to keep them submerged.
Cover the jar with a pickle pipe or a similar alternative. Culture at room temperature (60-70 degrees F) until the desired flavor is achieved.
Check at 3 days to see if the desired flavor has been achieved.
Once peppers are finished, put a lid on the jar and move to cold storage.
Other Fermentation Resources
Fermenting does not need to be complicated, but if you are anything like me the process seemed daunting at first. Looking through articles and resources on Amazon got overwhelming!
Let me assure you of something...fermenting is hard to mess up!
It really is. As long as you get the salt in, some good clean water, and make sure your veggies are beneath the surface (to prevent molding) most likely you are going to come out fine.
Here are some of my favorite fermenting tools to use.
Fermenting lids (no glass weight needed)
Simple Lacto Fermented Peppers
Ingredients
- Sweet peppers
- Mineral Salt (Redmond Real is my favorite)
- Filtered water
- Seasoning (optional) cumin, peeled garlic, sliced onion; cilantro or parsley, cumin, etc.
Instructions
- Dissolve 3 tablespoons of salt into one quart of water. Set aside.
- Rinse peppers with water and remove stems and cores.
- Slice/cut into thin strips or ½ to 1-inch sections.
- Place seasonings into a separate jar. Fill the jar with peppers. Add in more seasoning. Fill the rest of the jar with peppers. Leave approximately 1-2 inches of head space.
- Pour salt brine over peppers until covered.
- Weigh peppers down to keep them submerged.
- Cover the jar with a pickle pipe or a similar alternative.
- Culture at room temperature (60-70 degrees F) until the desired flavor is achieved. Check at 3 days to see if the desired flavor has been achieved.
- Once peppers are finished, put a lid on jar and move to cold storage.
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