In the last few years, shishito peppers have easily become one of my favorite peppers to grow in my garden. They are compact pepper plants as far as pepper plants go but despite their small garden footprint, they are very prolific. I typically grow 2-3 plants each year for the two of us and these yield plenty of peppers for roasting, grilling, and pickling.

I’ve previously shared with you how much I love these little gems charred with olive oil and sea salt. Today I want to tell you how great shishito peppers are pickled and preserved, as well.

In my years of experience with these peppers, they’re mostly mild but occasionally a semi-hot or hot one shows up and surprises me. I’ve heard the ratio 1 in 10 is hot but I greatly dispute that as a disproportionally high number, at least with the various ones that I’ve grown which heavily lean on the mild side.

So, now onto pickling shishito peppers and no, not sliced shishito peppers but pickling and canning WHOLE shishito peppers so they can be enjoyed on an appetizer platter just like pepperoncini peppers, which is the best way in my opinion.

Pickled Whole Shishito Peppers Canning Recipe

Makes about 5 pints

First, make sure you’ve got your jars, lids, and bands sterilized first so everything is ready to go. If you’re new to canning, this means you need to boil your jars for a minimum of 10 minutes in your canner. I’ve seen ways to do this in your oven but I myself stick to the tried, true, and safe method. Sterilize your lids and rings in a separate pan for 10 minutes. Yes, I’ve also read that now you don’t have to do this but I stick to my old-school ways and I’ve never had any problems with anything going bad on me.

Ingredients

• Enough shishito peppers to fill 5-pint canning jars, packed. This will vary wildly depending on the size of your peppers and they can be green shishitos or red, or a mixture of both. It’s good to have a variety of sizes so you can really pack your jars full.
• 6 cups of white vinegar
• 2 cups of water

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.

This is such a fantastic way to preserve shishito peppers and enjoy them for months to come.

The canning process can be quite involved but’s actually quite easy as long as you have all of the proper tools plus have everything prepared and ready to go. I’ve been canning for years and enjoy it immensely, though it’d be nice if someone could follow me around the kitchen and do all the dishes. 🙂

Please let me know if I’ve missed anything and enjoy your pickled peppers!