A bounty of just-picked peppers, ready for roasting.

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Four easy steps to homemade roasted peppers

Roasting your own peppers is incredibly easy… if you follow a couple of tips. The key to successfully roasting your own peppers is patience. A little patience will make the job far easier for yourself. Just follow these four easy steps, and be sure to allow enough time to elapse between the steps, and you’ll have wonderfully savory roasted peppers that are out of this world!

1. Seed and quarter peppers and place them on a cookie sheet. I line my sheet with parchment paper for easier clean-up. Choose fresh peppers and cut out any bad spots. Stay away from older, wrinkly peppers that are on the decline. You can use any kind of pepper, however you should wear gloves if working with hot peppers, such as jalepenos. The batch shown here are bell peppers I picked in varying stages of ripeness – green, yellow, orange and red.

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Remove from oven when skins are blackened and blistered.
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2. Place in a 500 degree (F) oven until the skins blacken and blister. Here’s the first point where patience comes into play. Don’t take the peppers out as soon as you see some blistering. In order to make the peppers easy to peel, you want the skins thoroughly blistered, as pictured here. You can also roast peppers over an open fire or barbecue grill, following the same rule of thumb – cook until the skins are blackened and thoroughly blistered.

3. Put roasted peppers in a brown paper bag until completely cooled. Using tongs, pick up the roasted pepper sections and place them in a brown paper bag, then roll the top of the bag down to seal shut. Keep the peppers in there until they are completely cooled. This is the second time you need to just be patient. If you start peeling the peppers while they still warm, you will be making the job harder for yourself. They peel very easily once at room temperature!

4. Peel the skins and blackened bits off the peppers. And what you have left are scrumptious homemade roasted peppers! They will keep for several days in the refrigerator. For longer storage, refrigerate in a jar and cover with olive oil. Use in soups, sandwiches, or however you choose!

Eco-tip: Plan to roast your peppers after baking something else in your oven… then you only have to raise the temperature to 500 degrees from 350 or whatever temperature it’s already at, rather than starting from a cold oven.

Store refrigerated in a jar of olive oli.

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Genco Extra Virgin Olive Oil – 1 Gallon
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