Since they are sometimes available on sale, you may want to stock up hot banana them. But when you have too many of them, can you freeze banana peppers? Whether you’re buying all your banana pepper stock or you’re planting your own, we need to go through the whole thing and see whether or not you can freeze up all the extras. We’re not the only ones who are having issues with having too many banana peppers.
I planted a garden this year and added several banana pepper plants to it. The plants were so small when I bought them that I planted several, not realizing how many peppers each plant would yield. Now I have far too many peppers to use at once. I’ve already dried some and pickled a few others, but I would really like to just freeze the rest. I’m not sure if freezing the peppers will change their flavour or texture.
I’m hoping to be able to use them all winter. Yes, you can certainly freeze banana peppers. While freezing won’t change the flavor of the peppers, it will change the texture. Peppers have a high water content. When they’re frozen, the water expands and can rupture the cell walls of the pepper.
When thawed, the walls contract, leaving the pepper limp and soggy. This shouldn’t be too much of a problem if you are planning to use the peppers chopped in recipes or as a garnish. It may become a problem if you were planning to bread or stuff them. An important fact to note is that if you are freezing hot banana peppers, the freezing process will actually affect their heat, making them hotter after being thawed. If you do not want the heat level to increase with freezing, you can slice open the peppers and remove the seeds carefully before freezing. The seeds are the source of heat in hot peppers.