Pequin Chili Peppers … Just in time for Winter Hot Sauce!

Pequin Chili Peppers, Oct, 2016

We recently harvested Fresh Pequin Chili Peppers to make Hot Sauce for Fall. The brilliant red is a great color for these tiny hot peppers!

Wash the peppers, then soak in vinegar — we use red wine vinegar for this batch! Just pour some of the vinegar

Pequin Peppers in Vinegar, Oct 2016

into a cup or other container, fill the original jar with peppers, and let them set for about 10 days. (You can also buy a sauce jar to use, but it’s just easier to use the existing vinegar container.) The vinegar that was removed can be used in a fresh cucumber salad, or used to make a vinegrette dressing for salds.

The prepared sauce is great for spicing up meats and other dishes–and this makes a nice gift to share with family and friends who like the spicy heat! Be warned; they are ranked quite high for heat content (5x to about 20x hotter than jalepenos).

Pequin Pepper Bush with peppers at various stages, Oct 2016

These tiny peppers grow on bushes that reach about 2 feet tall at the most. With the cooler weather of Fall, plus much needed rain showers earlier in the month, the peppers have revived from summer and are producing now.

The peppers easily establish easily and can be grown in borders or other small area garden beds.

They are green when first formed, then transition to red, and some to dark purple.

They are fully ripe when red and can be picked for use in salsa, to spice up a stir fry, or to make a vinegar based hot sauce that can be enjoyed for about a year!