Pickled Hot Hungarian Peppers

I’ve been growing these beautiful and deliciously-hot black Hungarian peppers for a few years now and they’ve become a favorite in my garden. They start off as a beautiful deep purplish black pepper and if left on the plant, they ripen to a deep, rich red. Here’s a shot of some of them alongside the orange jalapenos that I grow.

Our favorite way to enjoy them is simply roasted on the grill but I also make a fantastic hot sauce with them, which you can find my recipe for here.

They also add a delicious kick to salsa or oven-roasted alongside meaty chicken thighs.

This year, I had some extra on hand so I decided to pickle a quart jar of them while I was pickling my hot cherry bomb peppers, which you can find my recipe for here.

I pickle these the same way I do my hot cherry peppers and here’s how I make them.

Pickled Hot Black Hungarian Peppers Canning Recipe

Makes about 5 Pints

Ingredients

• 6 cups white vinegar
• 2 cups of water
• Approximately 2 1/2 pounds of hot black Hungarian peppers (red or black both work!) cleaned and dried well. The number of peppers can vary widely depending on the size of your peppers; a mix of large and small peppers will help you fully pack your jars.

Directions

• Fill a water bath canner with water, insert jar rack and jars, and bring to a boil.
• In a separate medium-sized saucepan, cover 5 canning jar lids and rings with water and bring to a boil.
• Jars, lids, and rings can remain up to an hour in water that they’ve been boiled in for 10 minutes
• Boil jars, lids, and bands for 10 minutes to ensure everything is properly sterilized.
• In a separate large pan, add vinegar and water and bring to a boil – I typically start this right before I start sterilizing everything.
• When jars are sterilized, use a canning jar lifter to carefully remove the jars, drain out the water (I usually drain one or two back into the pan to compensate for water lost while sterilizing and the rest gets poured down the sink), and place the sterilized jars on a clean counter or clean towel on your counter.
• Turn your water back on and begin to bring back to a boil while you fill your jars.
• Carefully pack as many shishito peppers into each jar as you can, alternating direction and using various sizes of peppers.
• When all the jars are packed with peppers, use a ladle and canning jar funnel to fill each one with your hot vinegar and water mixture, leaving 1/4 inch of headspace in each jar.
• Use a chopstick to move the peppers in the jars around and release as much air as you can. Top off with additional vinegar/water mixture if necessary.
• Wipe the rims of the jars clean.
• Place a lid and band on each jar, tightening the lid but not extremely tight.
• Use the jar lifter to carefully place each filled jar back into the canner.
• Make sure your jars are completely submerged and covered with water.
• Cover the canning pot and bring to a boil.
• Boil 10 minutes.
• When possible, remove the canning pot lid and let the jars cool for 10 minutes in the pan before carefully removing them. This helps with the loss of pickling solution in your jars. There’s no harm in removing the jars immediately; just ensure that they don’t lose an excessive amount of liquid (half or more) and that your jars seal properly. Letting the sit in the canning bath isn’t always practical if you have a lot of canning on deck. Note that fresh-packed peppers such as these, meaning you don’t cook them before putting them into the canning jars, have a tendency to lose more liquid during the canning process.
• Let the jars sit, undisturbed, for at least 12 hours; jostling them around after canning may prevent them from sealing properly.

As you can see, the black peppers do lose their color in the canning process but the red ones retain their beautiful color.

Whoo boy do these have a kick to them! Just like my pickled hot cherry bomb peppers, these are perfect for an appetizer tray or just simply served alongside your favorite burger or sandwich.

There’s nothing I enjoy more than pickling hot peppers from garden so we can enjoy them all year long. I hope you try growing and preserving these; they’re real show stoppers because of their color and flavor.

Enjoy!