Our Hot Pepper Powder, Hot Pepper Flakes, Dried Chipotle Peppers and Hot Pepper Ketchup made from all of our summer peppers
When your harvest starts to pile up – make good use of your peppers by making hot pepper flakes or powder
What to do with all of those peppers in the garden?
Here is a simple and easy method to use up all of those hot peppers – make fresh hot pepper flakes. We love them on pizza, eggs, or any other dish we want to spice up with a little heat and flavor.
We even make different kinds of pepper flakes depending on the peppers that are ready to pick. We have made cayenne, jalapeno, Cajun Belle and even Habanero (very hot!!!) flakes from all of our extra peppers. Many times we will use them all and make a mix.
Much like you would do when canning – you want to select the nicest and best looking of your peppers for drying. Wash and rinse the peppers off, cut off the stem and then dry them off with a towel and place on cookie sheets. Make sure you line the cookie sheets with aluminum foil before placing the peppers on them – we learned the hard way that drying peppers on unprotected cookie sheets can leave an everlasting heat to anything you bake on them afterwards 
Here – four trays of Habanero go into the oven for roasting!
We can fit 4 loaded cookie sheets of peppers on the two racks in our oven – and then we just simply turn on the heat to a very low setting (usually 160 to 170 degrees on ours )
We will let them roast on low for about 8 to 10 hours. If you have to leave – no worries – just turn off the oven and resume again when you come home – no harm done at all to the drying peppers. We will often dry them in the evening – and then turn off before bed – and finish drying the next morning or evening.
Grind the peppers in a food processor
When your peppers have turned crisp and dry (usually 8 to 10 hours – but it can be a few more or less depending on the dryness of the peppers) – take them out and let them cool completely. Then place into your food processor or food chopper – and in a matter of seconds you have fresh home-made pepper flakes. If you want to make hot pepper powder (like cayenne) – just simply take your flakes and run them through a food mill to remove the seeds – and your left with a fine powder that can be used in dishes, soups, and sauces.
We keep some on the counter year round to use in everything from soups to eggs to pizza.
One last great use for the hot pepper grind - mix up a few teaspoons of hot pepper flakes or powder in a gallon jug of water. Let it stand for a day or two and then use a mister to apply to plants where bunnies or other critters can be a problem. One taste of the hot pepper on the leaves and they tend to leave it alone. Just remember to re-apply after any rain that might wash off the hot spray.
Last but not least – a few cautions when working with hot peppers:
Always wear rubber gloves to prevent your hands from absorbing the heat from the peppers – from experience – I can tell you that it’s no fun to have your hands hurt for days from handling raw peppers.
When heating in your oven – you will definitley notice the smell and a little heat in the air from the peppers as they dry – we always keep a window or two open to help keep it from bothering us too much.
When grinding up in your food processor – we actually take ours to the porch back screened in porch to grind – just to avoid the sneezing dust that can come with the grind.
**If you would like to receive our Recipe Of The Week each Friday – be sure to sign up to follow the blog via email in the right had column, “like” us on the Facebook, or follow us onTwitter
- Mary and Jim
There is a lazier way that works as well. Just allow the peppers to dry on their own, perhaps strung up on a string as a decoration for a couple months.
That’s a great point and a great way to dry them as well. We have so much humidity in the summer months here – it is sometimes hard to get them to dry out that way.
Thank you for sharing this post! It is so informative! I can hardly wait to get my hands on some hot peppers! Who knew making your own pepper flakes or powder could be so easy! Blessings from Bama!
Thanks for stopping by!
Great information. I never thought about doing this when too many peppers were ready at once. I will definitely do this instead of giving them all away! Thanks so much!
We have strung them up the nice thing about it is you can forget about them….however your process gets it out of the way….by the way your peppers are beautiful and I have a bunch to process but knowing me and the fact I don’t want to add any more to do’s right now as I am going back to work full time in a week I think we will string ours up for now ….and process over Winter Break…..thanks so much Jim & Mary for linking up each week and for the birthday wishes! Ya’ll are awesome!
We have peppers galore and I have canned all the jalepenos we will ever need but I never thought about doing that for the rest of them! Great thinking! This is right up my alley
What a great idea! The peppers are usually too hot for us to use in recipes, but I use pepper flakes a lot in my cooking for flavor. Thanks for the idea!
I never knew how easy that could be…although I would need a better pepper crop than last year to be able to do it!
Been doing this for years and love it!!! Adds a great flavor to almost anything! We also made “cowboy candy” with jalapenos (and added a few habaneros to some to add more heat) that we’ll run out of before next year’s harvest. Can’t have too much of it over cream cheese and crackers or used in veggie dip!!!
Oh wow, this is totally going to revolutionize my red pepper flake buying. I love red pepper flakes and at this point, I’m buying them (or using the packets we get from the pizza guy). We use red pepper flakes on our pizza, in soups, teriyaki sauce, and other things, and I would so love to have our own from our very own garden. Great post–I’m pinning it!
I’d love it if you shared this post and up to two others at Farm Girl Blog Fest #21, which is live right now. You would be a great addition to the wonderful posts that are shared!
Farm Girl Friday Blog Fest #21
Hope to see you there!
~Kristi@Let This Mind Be in You
Great idea that I can’t wait to try. Do you make hot sauce? I would love a good recipe. I tried a recipe from Mother that called to ferment them first with salt and they got a white scummy layer on top that scared me so I had to throw it all out. Any recipes would be most appreciated..I am a hot sauce addict
The pepper flakes are so good Becky – you will have to let us know how they turn out when you try it! Mary made some sauce last year and we do have a great recipe for hot and spicy ketchup on the canning tab of our blog. We love hot sauce too!
If you need to line your cookie sheets with foil to prevent everything in the future from being hot, does that mean you have a separate bowl and blade you use on your food processor?
Hi Kathy – we have never had a problem with the blades and bowls becoming hot – I think the problem with the pans were that they baked on there and became really hot.
Wow I didn’t know making my own peper flakes could be so easy. I always use the store bought type in my cooking and in my garden for pest. Last year we had so many peppers that we were giving everyone we knew peppers. This year I am going to be making pepper flakes. Thank you for sharing your recipe.
I use dehydrators bought at Walmart. Have always dried them in the garage to keep the smell out of the house!. Always use rubber gloves when handling. When grinding (I use a food blender) I wear a dust mask and let the dust settle in the blender before opening the lid. Takes a little longer but you don’t get as much dust in the air.