Roasted Wrinkly Peppers

I got my hands on some beautiful red peppers! The only small thing “wrong” with them, is that they were a little wrinkly. This has happened to me in the past though – I found some awesome peppers, bought to many of them to use quickly, open the fridge one day and poof… wrinkly peppers.

At this point they are a little soft and ugly for eating raw – it’s hard to dip them into hummus like this… however, they are perfect for roasting.

At the wrinkly stage of a red peppers life, we know the sugars in them have concentrated. This makes these peppers literally the best roasted peppers ever.

Here’s how I do it:

Roasted Wrinkly Peppers
Ingredients:

• 4 large, over ripe red peppers

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Cut the peppers into 3-4 large pieces each and discard the veins and seeds. Keeping the pieces large and flat. At this point, I also cut out any icky spots if they exist.  Foil line a pan and put a rack on it. Spray rack with non-stick spray and lay peppers on it, skin side up.
2. Cook for 20 minutes, rotate pan, cook for another 10. At this point they should have big huge black, burnt looking spots on their skin. If not, cook them until they do, then turn the heat off and let them sit in the warm oven for 10 minutes.
3. When the timer goes off, put the peppers into a plastic bag or bowl with a lid, and let them sit for 10-15 minutes in their own steam. This will loosen their skins, making them easy to peel off when their done steaming.
4. Put the peppers in a jar by themselves to use within the next couple days or cover them in olive oil to keep for around a week or two.
5. Substitutions: Use this recipe for all kinds of peppers – especially jalapenos and poblanos. My favorite!



The color the pepper skins should be when done in the oven.



The steaming process.


These peppers are great blended up in dips (which is full circle cause at first I couldn’t dip them in dip!), put on pizzas and sandwiches or cut up in pasta. Enjoy!



They are a bit hard to peel - but totally worth the effort!