Peppers are great to add into your dishes. Of course, that’s if you pick the right one. Check out our tips for picking the perfect bell pepper before you head to the store.
For more help, check out all of our recipes.
If I’m making dinner and need peppers, I tend to gravitate towards red bell peppers. The sweet peppers are such a delicious addition to so many of my recipes.
I plant a ton of pepper plants in our home vegetable garden, so during the growing season, we have a ton of peppers to add to our meals. But, in the off season, I have to buy them from the supermarket. And that’s probably where you get your peppers too.
You head to the bins in the refrigerated section of the store and you’re overwhelmed by a ton of peppers piled on top of each other, waiting for you to take them home. To help you out next time you’re in the store, we put together this list of Tips For Picking The Perfect Bell Pepper.
For the sake of this post, we’re focusing on bell peppers, which are the most popular pepper. I know there are different types of peppers out there, but those peppers have a different set of rules when you’re choosing the perfect one.
Now that you have the perfect pepper, you need to figure out how to use it. Our list of 15 Easy Bell Pepper Recipes will give you some great ideas.
5 Tips For Picking The Perfect Bell Pepper
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Check the firmness
Ripe bell peppers should be firm to the touch, so give them a little squeeze. If they’re still hard to the touch, they’re ripe. If they’re soft and squishy, they’re overripe, so you’ll want to leave those at the store.
Look at the color
Bell peppers come in a rainbow of colors. If you’re shopping for bell peppers in the grocery store or farmers market, you’re most likely buying green, red, or yellow bell peppers. Regardless of what color you’re buying, you want to pay attention to the color.
A fresh bell pepper has shiny skin with vibrant colors. Once bell peppers start to overripen, the outside color starts to dull. Leave those ones at the store.
Avoid wrinkly skin
When bell peppers start to get old, the skin starts to wrinkle. This is referred to as shriveling. This happens when the bell peppers start to get old, have lost their moisture, and can’t really hold their shape.
If you see that happen when you’re at home, you want to use those bell peppers as soon as possible. They’re still edible, but you won’t get that nice snap you do from fresh peppers. You can still cook with them, since cooked peppers soften anyway, but they’re not best to be eaten as raw peppers.
But, when you’re in the grocery store buying peppers, you want to look for ones with smooth skin.
Look for a green stem
Bell peppers come in a variety of colors, but regardless of what color you’re buying, the pepper should have a green stem.
Sometimes a stem with have a little black on it due to leaves growing on it and/or where the pepper attached to the main stem, especially if you’re growing peppers in your own garden. That’s fine.
When the stem is brown, that means the stem is starting to die. In that case, the pepper is old and you don’t want to buy it.
Don’t worry about the number of lobes
There’s an old wives tale that says an easy way to find sweet bell peppers is to look at the lobes. The tale is peppers four lobes at the bottom are sweeter than ones with three lobes. There’s another myth that says peppers with four lobes are female peppers and peppers with three lobes are male peppers.
Neither of those things is true.
If you’re looking peppers with a sweet taste, you want to choose ones that have ripened more (so any colored pepper over green peppers because, as we’ve mentioned, green peppers are technically unripe red, orange, or yellow bell peppers). Also, different peppers will have different levels of sweetness. So worry about the variety of pepper when you’re looking for a sweet flavor rather than what’s going on at the bottom of the pepper.
Bell Peppers: Frequently Asked Questions
In most of the United States, the bell pepper season is usually late summer through early fall (July through September). That’s the best time to buy and eat bell peppers. However you can find bell peppers in your grocery stores at any time. Fun fact: Florida supplies most of the bell peppers from October to June.
The easiest way to tell is looking for wrinkly skin. That means the pepper has lost its moisture and is getting old.
Another way to check is to see what color the stem is. If it’s brown, put it down.
And finally, you can squeeze the pepper. If it’s soft to the touch, it’s bad.
So, the perfect peppers have smooth skin, a green stem, and are firm.
So, technically, green peppers are premature. Green is the first stage of red, yellow, and orange bell peppers.
It’s a myth that peppers start out as green and then go through various color changes as they become ripe peppers. The truth is that there are different varieties of peppers that are different colors.
But, regardless of what color they are in the end, they all start out as green.
A red pepper will go from green to a chocolate-y brown color before turning red, just because that’s how the colors look during the transition. But, that’s the only pepper that changes to multiple colors (if that even counts).
It takes quite a bit of time for peppers to go from green to red, which is why green bell peppers are the cheapest in the grocery store and red are more expensive.
You can eat green peppers, of course, even though they’re technically not ripe. They’re edible, just not as sweet as red peppers. So you do need to season green bell peppers more than you would a red bell pepper.
If you’re growing your own peppers at home, the best way to ripen peppers is to let them ripen on the vine. But, if you do pick green bell peppers early, they will ripen off the vine and on the counter.
Keep in mind that store-bought green peppers will probably rot on the counter before they go from green to another color, so don’t try to continue ripening them off the vine.
Peppers will last a couple days if you leave them on the countertop.
If you need them to last a long time, most peppers can last about two to three weeks in the fridge. The best way to store them is in the vegetable drawer in the refrigerator and/or in a plastic bag that has small holes punched in to allow for some air flow.
You can freeze peppers in three ways. Before you freeze peppers, it’s best to determine how you will use them unfrozen because that will determine how you freeze them.
Freezing peppers to use them raw:
If you’re going to eat the peppers raw after you defrost them, that’s easy. Just cut off the stem, remove the pepper seeds from the inside, then cut the pepper into slices. Place the pepper slices on a cookie sheet. Put that in the freezer until the peppers are solid. Then, transfer the pepper slices into a freezer-safe bag and keep them in the back of the freezer.
Freezing peppers to cook them:
If you’re planning on cooking the peppers after you freeze them, you’ll want to blanch them first. Then, put the pieces on a cookie sheet — making sure the pieces do not touch — and put it in the freezer until the pieces are frozen solid. Keep in mind, it can take hours for them to freeze completely. Transfer them to a freezer-safe bag and keep it in the back of the freezer.
Freezing bell peppers to use as stuffed peppers:
Cut the top of the pepper to remove the stem. While leaving the pepper whole, clean the insides. Follow the instructions above to blanch the pepper. Fill the pepper with your stuffed pepper mixture. Put the stuffed peppers in a cake pan (with high sides) and put the pan in the freezer until the peppers are frozen solid. This could take a few hours. When they’re solid, wrap them in plastic wrap and put them in a freezer-safe bag. When you want to cook them, remove the plastic wrap, thaw, then cook.
In the freezer, bell peppers will keep for up to 12 months.
More Pepper Recipes:
We do cook with bell peppers a lot, but that’s not the only pepper that finds its way onto our menu. If you’re the same way, check out our list of Budget-Friendly Recipes With Jalapeño Peppers. You’ll find a bunch of recipes for those spicy peppers, from fresh salsas to stuffed jalapeño peppers and more.
Which of these tips for picking the perfect bell pepper was new to you? Let us know in the comments.