Grow Your Own Magazine

Hia,

I had a bumper crop of Chillies, but I am unsure of how to preserve these - I put some of them in oil, but they started to get all horribly smelly with weird bubbles, now after seeing chilli peppers as presents in a shop, I put them in vinegar. The ones I put in oil with garlic still smell nice, and I wonder how to save them from going off - I now put some lemon juice in there and some honey to hopefully deter the bacteria for good.

However, so far I haven't found any cookbook formula on how to preserve these. I think I could have dried these in the oven possibly, but we already have a stack of dried chilli peppers.

Anybody having some more ideas?

You can freeze them. I just dry mine - or make chilli jam.

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Some days you're the statue, some days you're the pigeon!

vegheaven.blogspot.com Updated July 16th 2008

Thanks Flummery, just found the pickling chillies thread, which has also a lot of good suggestions. I just wish I had read it before embarking on the oil adventure.

hello ulla
i have recipes for chili jam and sweet chili sauce which i am making for the last three years. my children love the sweet chili sauce but the chili jam is usually to hot for them pm me i can write up the instruction if you want and you send an sae and i will send them off
regards nemo

Hi Nemo,

I notice from your post that you live in Ireland. I am living in Dublin and tried growing chili peppers last year. I tried jalepeno, pizza chilis and a standard chilli pepper variety. The instructions indicated to grow indoors from March and plant outside in May or June. The plants grew but produced no fruit. It was a bad summer here so that may have contributed.

Do you grow indoors, outdoors or in a greenhouse?

Many thanks.

I just leave mine in the kitchen to dry. If you want to preserve in oil, then you need to make sure that they are completely clean and dry on the surface first - also it may help to heat the oil and shake the jars to make sure there are no air bubbles. Just my theory, I've never tried it myself.

Just want to add RL post,
I do the dry chili in oil preserved, in vinegar preserve and as dry chili powder/ flakes. With the oil one, you will have to slightly crush your dry chili ( the whole dry pod will float) and if you want to use heated oil, don't use olive oil as it will be damaged at high temp (use sun flower oil or grapeseeds instead).
I also make chili sauce ( both sweet and spicy). For the sauce purpose, you will have to use fresh chili as dried one is not suitable.

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I grow, I pick, I eat ...

I hope to have enough chilli harvest this year to make Sweet Thai dipping chilli sauce, Indonesian style chilli sauce 'Sambal Oelek' and chilli sauce in a ketchup style with garlic and sweet flavour.

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Food for Free

I just wanna say that i have made several batches of momol's chiili sauce, using both fresh and frozen peppers and it really is superb, quite quite superb.

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Rat

British by birth
Scottish by the Grace of God

[size="1"]Journal updated Monday 7th July

Hey momol where's your chilli sauce recipe please? Type it up!

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Manda.

"Wouldn't it be nice
For maybe an hour
To not have a care."

i'd be eternally grateful if anyone who preserves chillis in vinegar would be able to share their method.. i've never preserved anything before but would like to have a go at jalapenos in the style of the ones you buy in the shops!

I've put a recipe up on the 'season to taste' thread sez.

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Manda.

"Wouldn't it be nice
For maybe an hour
To not have a care."

thank you very much indeed nachos are exactly what we use them for too!

Hi
I am just woundering if you could send me the reciepes for your jam/sauce.How long do they keep in bottles?
Kind Regards
Trudy

If you're looking for methods of preserving chillies try the following All About Chillies In Australia, New Zealand & The Southern Hemishphere. Also have lots of other things to do with chillies. Enjoy