Canning pickled banana peppers
Sign up for our canning pickled banana peppers newsletter of new articles, and receive a FREE 20-page digital, printable garden planning toolkit. Aaron picked a peck of peppers to pickle.
Deanna and Aaron pickled a peck of peppers that Aaron picked. The picked peppers that they pickled were perfect! Now I want to teach you how to make our favorite, quick-and-easy, refrigerator pickled peppers recipe. These pickled peppers are delectably tangy, just a tad sweet, and as spicy as you make them!
Truth be told, we grow banana peppers pretty much just to make this recipe! We have pickled jalapeños, spicy corn de chevre peppers, and even sweet bell peppers in this same manner. Personally, we prefer to save our hot peppers for making homemade chili powder! See how we make chili powder in this easy tutorial. Optional: Grape, oak, black tea, or horseradish leaves. All of these leaves contain tannins that help the peppers stay more crisp.
I highly suggest adding them if you choose to hot-bath can pickled peppers. The heat will cause them to soften much more than the refrigerator method! Speaking of canning, if you intend to hot-bath can this pickled pepper recipe, increase the vinegar-to-water ratio than what is listed above. For food safety, adjust the recipe to be about 3 times the amount of vinegar to water. 2 cup of water, scaling both up as needed. Peel 2 to 3 cloves of garlic, crush them lightly with the wide side of a knife, and throw them in the jar as well. Finally, add a pinch of peppercorns.
We add about a dozen per quart jar. If you are using grape or oak leaves, add one or two to the bottom of each jar now. A close up image showing the bottom of a quart size mason jar. It contains, three cloves of garlic, a few sprigs of dill neatly nest around the outer edge of the inside of the jar, and a number of peppercorns dot the bottom as well. On the stovetop, combine equal parts white vinegar and water in a pot. Stir, and lightly heat the mixture until the salt and sugar has dissolved. We don’t want to add the brine to the peppers when it is piping hot though!
Therefore, allow the brine to cool a bit while you are preparing and packing the peppers in jars. You have probably noticed that we leave our peppers whole for this refrigerator pickled pepper recipe! We have found that this helps maintain crispness. It also reduces the preparation effort upfront. Later, we can either snack on the pickled peppers whole, or slice them into rings as desired! Keep the stems attached, but feel free to trim them down to a shorter length if they are extra lanky. Next, poke each pepper with a sharp knife in a couple of places.
This allows the brine to adequately penetrate and engulf the peppers, seeping in through the small slits you’ve created. A close up image of a yellow banana pepper being held with one hand while the other inserts a slit into the pepper with a knife. Below the pepper that is being focused on lies a metal strainer full of more banana peppers. Step 4: Pack Peppers Now pack those jars! Rather than simply tossing them in there all caddywhompus, I try to carefully and methodically place, pack, and tuck the peppers into the jars in a manner to fit as many as possible, leaving little spare room. Packing them tight also reduces their ability to float, and helps them stay submerged in the brine. Feel free to add a few slices of onion, carrots, green beans, or other garden goodies to your jar too.
