Hmmmm, thats a good question, i would think with a pepper it would be better to not blanch, i only say that because it would probably try to peel the skin. Thats just my opinion. We will soon find out if im right, wrong, or in between!

I freeze bell peppers all the time, both the ones I grown & what I buy in the winter if they are on sale. Just chop & freeze. As long as they are used in cooking you will never know the difference.

With sweet peppers, I do the same thing Patty does. I freeze them both sliced and chopped, without blanching, and I package them in pre-measured quantities used for cooking. I label the packages with an Industrial Sharpie. What I usually do is put the pre-measured cooking portions in small zip-lock bags (either snack size or sandwich size) and then put all the smaller packages in a gallon-sized zip-lock freezer bag. One big freezer bag will have all the little zip-locks with peppers frozen in 1/2 cup amounts, another big freezer zip-lock will hold all the little zip-locks in 1 cup portions, etc.

My favorite way to freeze jalapeno peppers is to oven-roast them first and then freeze them for later use in cooking. Sometimes I roast and freeze them whole, and other times I slice them in half lengthwise, de-seed them and then roast them. I use those to stuff and make baked or grilled poppers year-round.

I also freeze raw hot peppers that haven't been blanched or roasted, and when I do, I just wash them, dry them, and cut off the stem end before freezing.

I often chop and freeze both onions and peppers in the amounts needed for various canning recipes--for Annie's Salsa, for example, so that I can make salsa in autumn's cooler temperatures. Usually I make a few dozen jars of salsa in summer, but then when I'm tired of making it, I just process all the tomatoes and other ingredients and freeze them separately so I can make more when we start running out of the summer salsa.

The National Center for Home Food Preservation is the ultimate authority on the correct processing of food for preserving, and the methods they recommend are the government-tested and safety-approved methods that give you the best-quality and safest preserved food products. I won't say that I always do things the way they say to do it, but I do follow their rules 98 or 99% of the time. They say that with sweet peppers you can either blanch or not. I've linked their sweet pepper page below because it gives their recommended blanching times for sweet peppers. For hot peppers, they do not recommend blanching.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Freezing Peppers--NCHFP

Dawn, when you cut off the stem end of hot peppers to freeze, do you also de-seed them?

Thanks everyone. I appreciate your help very much

Shallot, I deseed the ones that I roast and freeze to use for poppers.

I don't deseed the ones I freeze whole.

The seeds and the internal membrane bring the heat....so whether to keep them or toss them is a matter of how much of their heat you want to preserve.

You always can decide to deseed them when you take them out of the freezer, but you can't decide at that point to put the seeds back in if you removed them before your froze the peppers.

My decision might vary from year to year. The hotter and drier the weather, the hotter and more intense the pepper flavor. So, in a hot, dry year if the flavor of the peppers is really hot and intense, I might slice them in half and deseed them to lower the heat level. On the other hand, in a cooler, milder summer, the jalapenos won't seem hot enough to me, so the last thing I'd want to do would be to remove any part of the pepper that affects the heat and flavor.

I have a friend who usually can eat habanero peppers, but in some really hot, dry years they have had more heat than she can tolerate.

I haven't frozen a single hot pepper yet this year. I've been busy making candied jalapenos with them. I'll likely get around to freezing some in August or September after I get tired of canning peppers.

Sheila, You're welcome.

Dawn

Last year I froze bell and banana peppers by just washing, chopping and deseeding. I was happy enough with them until a month ago when I made fajitas with them. They weren't very good. Kind of rubbery and slightly bitter. I roasted poblanos and Joe Parkers--an Anaheim type, and have been happier with both. After roasting, I peeled them. The Joe Parkers in particular peeled very easily. The skin is thick and peels off in large sheets almost like pulling off plastic. The Poblanos didn't peel as easily, but I got most of the skin off. I have made chile rellenos and have also added some roasted peppers and roasted tomatillos to quacamole several times. I love the flavor and any left over doesn't turn brown in the fridge. I just threw jalapenos in the freezer whole and used them to make salsa in the winter.

I never blanch peppers before freezing and they do fine. I chop some for cooking, cut some in strips for use in fajitas, take the tops of poblanos and freeze them whole. I never freeze banana peppers and no longer grow them because I just don't like the flavor. I just pack mine in gallon size bags and have always been able to just take out what I want when I need them. When I freeze onions, I do separate them into 1/2 cup bags.