Roasting Red, Green or Yellow Peppers

This is a great and easy way to roast your own peppers in the oven. I am using the red peppers in my Roasted Red Pepper and Basil Pasta that I am making for today's lunch. The rest I will cool, bag up in freezer bags, and place in the freezer for another meal. Start by preheating the broiler on your oven, set to the highest temperature.

1. Rinse the peppers with warm water and dab with a towel to dry. Coat each pepper evenly with oil. A pastry brush is useful, but fingers will work in a pinch. I used spray canola oil to coat the peppers. Make sure to coat inside the folds of each pepper.

2. Place the peppers on a baking sheet and place the baking sheet on the highest rack in your oven. 

3. Watch the peppers! I tend to multitask during this process and forget about the peppers in the oven and Oops! before you know it, I have overcooked the whole batch beyond repair. When dark splotches begin to appear, remove the baking sheet from the oven.

 

4. The peppers will be hot. Using tongs, carefully turn each pepper over. Once all of the peppers are turned, return the sheet to the oven.

5. When the tops of the peppers begin to darken again, remove them from the oven and cover with a tea towel. Some websites suggest wrapping in a plastic bag or plastic wrap, but I have issues with heated plastic around my food leaching cancerous substances into my family's food. The steam from the trapped hot peppers will loosen the skins.

 

6. Once the peppers are cool enough to handle (probably about 15 to 20 minutes), pull the stems out of each pepper and gently peel the skin off of each pepper. The skin should slide off fairly easily. Remove the bulk of the seeds and pulp from the inside with the dull side of your knife.