Lola Rugula

Hot cherry pepper seeds proved to be somewhat of a challenge to find until just a couple of years ago. It seems that they’re making a comeback, though. Finally. These little red orbs of fiery deliciousness are well worth the search, in my opinion. Here’s how I preserve them – if you are familiar with the canning process, this ranks as one of the easiest recipes around. The most tedious part of this is making a slit at the top of each pepper but this helps release their hot oils into their brine as they process. It also helps prevent them from cracking in the canning process.

This recipe typically makes 5-6 pint jars of peppers, depending on their size.

• 6 cups white vinegar
• 2 cups water
• 2 1/2 pounds of hot cherry peppers (red or green both work!) washed. Using a sharp knife tip, make a small slit in the top (stem end) of each pepper – the number of peppers can vary widely depending on the size of them. For the best-packed jars, use a mix of large and small peppers.

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 it back to a boil while you fill your jars.
• Carefully pack as many cherry 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 for 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.

Now, you can add garlic and spices to these if you’d like. I use this very simple brine because I use mine to make my hot stuffed cherry peppers with prosciutto and provolone  (also called cherry bombs or hot cherry poppers) which are a huge hit at the holidays and all year long. If you follow the link above, I also show you how to quick pickle them…no canning required.

I’ve often been asked if you can process and can these hot cherry peppers stuffed with prosciutto and provolone and my answer to this is “no”. I mean, technically you can but I would never recommend it. You don’t want the prosciutto and provolone to pickle, just the peppers. 🙂

Give these babies a try – if you like hot, you’re going to love these! They’re also great in bloody mary’s and just as an appetizer (no stuffing required).

Enjoy!