Smoked Peppers for Chipotle
Making our yearly batch of smoked hot peppers for chipotle sauce.
Matt picked the peppers—Homemade metal smoking container made with rabbit fencing. Matt looks a little devilish with the smoker going in the background. He's actually very sweet.
We grow a mix of Hungarian Hot Wax, Jalapeño and Serrano and allow them to mature to a nice dark red color on the plants before harvesting them for this project.
Cooking the peppers—Very important: Do not take the stems off before smoking, they get too dried out. Pulled off the smoker, they look a little oily—that is perfect!
Smoke them until they are soft and almost oily-looking, but don't allow them to turn black!
Pureé! Pull the stems off before pureé process. Wear latex gloves!!!
Purée with a little salt, place in glass jars for the refrigerator, and freezer. Do not freeze using plastic bags or plastic containers, the smoky smell will take over everything else in your freezer!
Pepper sauce in Jars—like gold going into the freezer.
We love this mixed into sour cream for dipping tortilla chips or put onto burritos. We also love our chipotle sauce plain alongside fried potatoes and eggs for breakfast.
I add it to homemade or store-bought bbq sauce , all bean dishes using black beans or pinto beans and also to vegetable soup to give it a little kick!
This sauce is more of a paste, very thick! Thin it down with a little water if you want to.
If you do a lot of vegan and vegetarian cooking, it's great with pan-fried crimini mushrooms, brushed on grilled veggies, and added to veggie and rice stir fry for a bit of smoky wok flavor that is hard to replicate in the home kitchen.
This is a fun family project, but wear latex gloves!!!
So if you have a bumper crop of hot peppers or a neighbor does and they want to share, do this project soon. You will be so happy!
