Tangy Pickled Pepper Recipe
Here’s a tangy pickled pepper recipe to try out that works perfectly for peppers of any heat level. Whether they’re super hot, ultra mild, or anywhere in between, this recipe’s the goods. So, it’s spicy, tangy peppers for your fridge with an awesome zesty Greco-Italian flair, courtesy of The Renaissance Garden Guy.
After reading the above introduction, you might get the idea that I really know my way around a kitchen. I mean, zesty Greco-Italian flair? Come on. Who besides reality cooking show chefs and restaurant critics uses terminology like that? Definitely not a guy like me who can’t even make a grilled cheese sandwich. Right?
Wrong. I feel justified discussing my very own refrigerated tangy pickled pepper recipe because it’s actually really good, and it’s actually really easy to make (an important selling point for inept, uninspired, unmotivated anti-cooks like me). So how did this old, lifelong non-grilled cheese sandwich maker come up with such a snappy recipe? I snagged bits and pieces from various recipes I found online (I’m including links at the end of this article to the two I liked best), and I utilized some critical elements from my mom’s awesome Greek cooking repertoire.
If you caught my last RGG article, “How Hot Are Trinidad Scorpion Peppers?”, you’ll understand that this recipe works wonders for peppers of any heat level, including those occupying the loftiest peaks of the Scoville scale. In addition to the scorching Trinidad Scorps, I’ve also pickled Spicy Jane ponky peppers and Italian Long Hots in this amazingly savory milieu, and jalapeños and serranos (compliments of my sister and her amazing garden) are soon to follow. If you like the zest of Greek and Italian cooking, than this refrigerated tangy pickled pepper recipe is gonna be right up your alley.
The recipe incorporates a two step process (with a sort of third, no-brainer step at the very end), so I’m going to give you the ingredients and my methodology for each of the steps. You’ll be making the actual pickling liquid (for short, I’ll call it “brine”), and you’ll be sautéing the peppers themselves before you immerse them in the good stuff and stick them in the fridge.
Tangy Pickled Pepper Recipe, Step One: Make the Pickling Liquid
Ingredients
- 2 teaspoons coarsely chopped red onion
- 6 whole garlic cloves peeled
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano (little leaves, not powdered)
- 2 teaspoons table salt (can also try sea salt)
- 4 tablespoons white granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon whole mustard seed
- 1/4 teaspoon peppercorns
- 2 cups white vinegar
- 1/2 cup water
Makes enough for a one quart jar. Depending on how many peppers you end up including, you could end up having some extra of this awesome go-go juice. Yum!
Here are the directions, so make that brine!!!
Combine all of the ingredients in a pot, stir, and heat on medium/low heat on your stovetop until the sugar and salt is dissolved and just before the brine begins to boil. (Continue gentle stirring throughout the heating process.) Remove from heat and let cool. So far so good. Pretty simple, huh? On to step two.
Tangy Pickled Pepper Recipe, Step Two: Sauté the Peppers
Ingredients
- 1 to 2 cups whole or sliced peppers (your choice, but any kind of chili works great)
- 1 teaspoon coarsely chopped red onion
- 3 whole garlic cloves peeled
- 1/4 teaspoon dried oregano (little leaves, not powdered)
- 1/4 teaspoon table salt (can also try sea salt)
- 1/3 cup olive oil
- 1/4 cup white vinegar
Sauté those peppers!!!
In my uninformed parlance, the word “sauté” means heating my peppers in this concoction until they’re slightly tender. Let them stew for too long, and they’ll turn to mush. So keep checking them while you’re stirring them. Some peppers stay firm longer than others, and sliced peppers go soft in the sauté pan way faster than whole peppers. Now that all of that’s out of the way, here’s what you do:
Combine all of the above ingredients in a small to medium-sized skillet or fry pan. I use an 8″ fry pan. Heat them on your stovetop over low heat until the mixture starts to simmer (very low boil), stirring gently the whole time. Here’s the tricky part: Like I told you, different peppers get tender in these conditions more quickly than others, and sliced peppers get soft much more quickly than whole peppers, so you’ve got to check them as your stirring and while they’re simmering in their low-boil conditions. As an example, my whole Trinidad Scorpion peppers began tenderizing at about 6 or 7 minutes of simmering, and my whole Spicy Janes took about 10 or 12 minutes to start to tenderize. Keep checking them while stirring. Once they start to tenderize remove the pan from the heat and let the whole thing cool.
And what’s the point to tenderizing your peppers in this fashion? Hey, this is a tangy pickled pepper recipe, right? Sautéing your peppers makes sure that they get good and tangy when you pickle them. Once they’re slightly tenderized, they’ll perfectly absorb the flavors from the pickling brine in which you’re about to immerse them. Sautéing your pickled peppers first makes for a tastier, tangier pepper out of the fridge, out of the jar, and into your kisser.
Get Them in the Jar and into the Fridge
Once the peppers are cool enough to handle, remove them from the skillet or fry pan and place them in a one quart pickling jar. (It’s best to use jars made specifically for pickling: they incorporate rubber gasketed, airtight lids.) DO NOT dump the entire mixture from the pan into the jar. Instead, remove the peppers from the pan individually and place them in the jar. Discard the mixture in the pan. (Or dunk some robust-crusted bread in it and make yourself a meal – that’s what I do. My gluttony is boundless.) But DO NOT mix it in with the pickling brine from Step One.
Once all of the peppers are in your one quart jar, pour the now cooled pickling brine that you made in Step One into the jar and over the waiting peppers. Fill the jar nearly to the top. Screw the airtight lid on the jar, and stick your jar of peppers into the fridge. After about 24 hours, your peppers will have had sufficient time to absorb the flavors from the pickling brine, and they’ll be ready to eat.
By all accounts, your new batch of pickled peppers will stay good in the refrigerator for up to a month, assuming you’re using airtight pickling jars. But I’m telling you, you’re going to really love these things, so they’ll be gone long before the month is up.
Credit for My Recipe
My mother was an incredible cook. Her Greek heritage (her own mom, my grandmother, Celeste, possessed culinary skills of unheard of breadth and depth, and a stockpile of recipes to match) influenced much of her cooking, and that cooking has, in turn, influenced me and my tangy pickled pepper recipe. With my mom’s ingredient and methodology predilections as my guide, I formed in my mind a recipe that I thought would work. To substantiate my concept and bolster my own methodology, I went searching for recipes online that I thought would lend the proper support to my efforts and fill in any gaps that I knew would exist if I were left entirely to my own inexperienced devices. I found two recipes that fairly closely matched what I had in mind, and I used bits and pieces of their respective ingredients and processes and combined them with my mom’s underlying influence to develop the recipe I’ve laid out for you here. Check out “Spicy Refrigerator Pickled Peppers” and “How to Make Pickled Peppers”. You’ll definitely see in them similarities to my own recipe, and, if you try them, you may like them better than mine.
Enjoy your peppers!
Thanks for having a read, my dear readers and subscribers. As always, I’m grateful for your interest and your readership.
Cheers, and Happy Gardening!
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Nice… I am certain it must taste delicious…..
I enjoyed reading this very much, now I need to find someone to do it for me, because me and cooking are enemies 😂😊
Thank you for reading it, Roxxy. You and I are on the same page. I hate cooking, and I’m very, very bad at it. But this recipe was amazingly easy to do. And it really is delicious. One day, when you’re feeling ambitious, you should give it a try. Thanks again!
Your recipe sounds great. But the peppers are way too hot for me. I hope you do not try to eat them all in one sitting!
Thanks for checking it out, Kevin. Believe it or not, the recipe is awesome! It works great for hot or mild peppers. But you’re right about those Trinidad Scorpions. They really are brutal. Pickling them does absolutely nothing to dull their heat. But you can definitely try the recipe with more mild varieties . Thanks again, Kevin!
A little adventurous for me. I appreciate the recipe and visuals for making your tangy concoction. Fun to see you branching out in new fields.
Thanks for checking out the recipe, Rick. I’ve got to admit, it’s really very good. But despite my beginner’s luck with this particular brew, I’ll not be publishing any cookbooks or hosting any cooking podcasts in the foreseeable future. This is good news for the population at large, I think. Thanks again, Rick!