Freezing Bell Peppers

Freezing Bell Peppers is actually very easy to do. Follow these simple steps to learn how to freeze bell peppers. You can have that great green pepper flavor for your cooking all year long.

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What to do with a big harvest of Peppers?

We love sweet peppers!   Almost any meal tastes better with a few bell peppers in it.  We use them in soups, salads, casseroles, and stir-fries.  Peppers can be so expensive to buy when they are not in season and so of course we started planting and growing peppers in our garden.   

However, we can’t eat every pepper we grow and so we had to find an easy way to preserve our peppers. We decided that freezing peppers was the best way to preserve them.  Freezing bell peppers is actually very easy to do.  Every year we try to get 3 or 4-gallon-sized bags of them in the freezer.  

And every year we always want more!  So even if you don’t grow a lot of peppers in your garden, try going and buying some from your local farmer’s market.  You will soon realize the convenience and all the money you will save by just going to your freezer to get your peppers instead of the store.

Favorite Bell Pepper Varieties

Over the years we have tried several different varieties of bell peppers to grow and freeze.  We have finally landed on a few pepper varieties that are our favorite bell peppers to freeze because they produce well and they taste super sweet.  

• Yolo Wonder
• Banana
• Big Red
• Coral Bell

We grew 4 different varieties of peppers this year and loved each of them.   But our absolute favorite one is the banana peppers because we can always count on them to produce a lot of peppers. It is important to choose varieties that will grow well in your zone so you can have a great harvest of bell peppers to freeze.

How to Freeze Bell Peppers

Freezing bell peppers is so easy.  Bell peppers are one of those veggies that handle the freezer really well.  They are so good even after freezing. They don’t get squishy like other frozen veggies so I have been able to throw frozen ones into some homemade salsa and they have tasted great.  However, the texture obviously isn’t the same as fresh so we mainly use them to cook with.

Why Should I Freeze Bell Peppers

• Super simple in 5 easy steps
• Doesn’t take much time to do
• No Blanching Required
• Saves you money from buying peppers out of season

Do you Need to Blanch Bell Peppers before Freezing?

Peppers are one of the few vegetables that you don’t need to blanch before freezing.  This is my favorite vegetable to freeze because no blanching is required!!  Freezing bell peppers is one of the easiest vegetables to preserve!!  The least amount of effort is required to freeze them which is why we grow so many peppers in our garden! 

Supplies needed for freezing peppers

• Bell Peppers
• Cutting Board
• Knife
• Kitchen towel
• Parchment Paper
• Baking sheet
• Resealable plastic freezer bags

6 Simple Steps – Freezing Bell Peppers

Step 1- Pick fresh peppers without soft spots

• Choose ripe peppers from your garden or buy some from your local farmers market.

Step 2-Wash  & Clean out Peppers

• Wash each bell pepper and cut the peppers in half and remove the stem, and white membranes, and seeds.  The easiest way to remove seeds is to rinse them under running water and the rest of the seeds will come out easily. Dry the peppers off with a towel

Step 3-Cut them to your desired size. 

• We slice our sweet bell peppers in long strips just in case we want to use them on a grilled veggie sandwich or in a fajita.  It is also easier to cut them longer which is really the reason I cut them this way!    If we need smaller pieces of peppers than in their frozen state they easily break into little pieces or you can chop them up.  It just doesn’t get any simpler than that.

Step 4-Pre-Freeze peppers before Storing

• Spread the cut peppers out flat in a single layer on a  baking pan covered with parchment paper.    Place the peppers in the freezer overnight.  We always “pre-freeze” them like this, it allows each piece of pepper to freeze individually and makes them so much easier to deal with later.  It is so easy to open the bag and get some out for meals without the peppers being stuck together.

Step 5-Store Peppers in a Freezer Bag or Mason Jar

• Once they are frozen, take them out of the freezer and remove them from the baking pan.  I simply lift up the parchment paper from the baking sheet and wiggle the paper to help break apart any pieces that may have frozen together.
• Fold the parchment paper in half and line it up with a freezer bag and let the peppers slide into the bag or jar.  Before closing the bag try to get the air out by sucking it out with a straw.

Step 6-Label the Freezer bag

• Write down the contents of the bag and the date they were frozen and put them back in the freezer.  Now you can sit back and enjoy how much money you saved all winter as you just have to walk to your freezer to grab some yummy bell peppers out.

Always remember when you are preserving foods to check the most recent preserving instructions.  You can get them from the USDA, your local county extension agency, or from a recently published book.  We love the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving and use it all the time.