The Magic of Roasting Peppers

This is a picture of most of the ingredients of a salad I'm going to make on Sunday (I know... it's a little early) but I just wanted to post about roasting those beautiful bell peppers you see above. I love roasted peppers. The magical things that happen when you roast a pepper is beautiful. The pepper becomes soft and sweet. I put them on everything, and I mean everything. Salads, in soups, on sandwiches, in wraps, with Tex-Mex, I make pasta sauces out of them, and I garnish dishes with them. I could literally eat a roasted pepper in its entirety and with nothing else. I love this stuff!

Yes, you can get roasted peppers in a jar, but if you have the time roast peppers yourself. I bought roasted peppers in a jar once. It was my first and my last time. They just didn't taste as fresh and they were too soggy (I like that fresh peppers stay very slightly crunchy). It is super easy and totally worth the 10-15 minutes. These peppers will be in the salad I'll post about on Sunday, so I'm just getting a head start :)

Roasted Bell Peppers

Whole bell peppers (any color)
1 small plastic sandwich bag per pepper

There are many ways to do this, and I'll cover two here: with a gas range and with an oven.

First, wash your pepper.

Turn on a gas eye and place the pepper onto the eye. Rotate the pepper with tongs until the entire pepper is completely charred and black.

This will not work on electric stoves! If you have electric range, then just pre-heat your oven broiler on high and slice the peppers in half length-way. Remove the membranes and seeds and place the pepper halves cut side down onto a baking sheet and place under the broiler. Keep an eye on the peppers and remove when the peppers turn completely black. This will take about 5-10 minutes, depending on how hot your broiler gets.

Once the peppers are charred, take the peppers and place them into plastic sandwich bags. Close the bag and set aside (seam-side down if the bag does not have a zip). Wait for about 10-15 minutes to allow the pepper to sweat... be patient. Magical things are happening!

Once the time has elapsed, remove the pepper. You can remove the skin by just peeling off all of the skin or you can hold the pepper under running water and it will fall off.

Now, you can store these for later use. If you roasted the whole pepper, make sure you slice the pepper and remove the seeds and membranes before storing. Just place the peppers into an air tight container. It will keep in the refrigerator up to 5 days.

Slice them up and use them on everything! I'll show you one of my favorite salads using these beauties on Sunday. Sorry, I couldn't wait that long to share this with you!

By the way, if you figure out a way to use these in dessert, please share with me! I would eat them that way, too :)

Happy Eating!