Dehydrated Green Peppers

Dehydrated Green Peppers, Capsicum annuum, are mild peppers that measure 0 Scoville Heat Units (SHU). They are also called dried bell pepper, dried green peppers, or dehydrated bell peppers.

These Green Bell Peppers boast a volatile oil content of approximately 3%, though they can go as high as 5% due to their concentration during the dehydration process.

What are Dried Bell Peppers

Bell Peppers are the mild cousins of the bold and spicy chile pepper. The unripe fruit of the bell pepper plant, these Dried Green Bell Peppers retain their grassy flavor profile and mild vegetal aroma during dehydration. The flavor condenses when they dry, so they may be more piquant than the average bell pepper. In botanical terms, a bell pepper is technically a fruit, not a vegetable, since the seeds are housed inside the walls of the pepper and that pepper grows from the ovaries of a flowering plant. We view the pepper as a vegetable, though, in culinary terms, which focuses on its overwhelmingly savory nature.

What do Dried Bell Peppers Taste Like

Grassy, brisk flavor and mildly bitter finish.

Are Dried Bell Peppers Hot

These chiles are not hot at all and measure 0 SHU (Scoville Heat Units).

How to Use Dried Bell Peppers

Rehydrate Dried Green Bell Peppers by soaking in hot water for 20 minutes and draining or add to a dish to cook for the final 20 minutes. This is a wonderful addition to a mild queso dip and goes wonderfully with instant pot baked beans. Rehydrate for a pepper chicken stir fry, or make a great Southwestern omelet, and don’t forget to add Dried Green Bell Peppers to the hash browns, too.

We also carry a Dried Red Bell Pepper.

Dried Bell Pepper Substitution

In any recipe that calls for fresh bell peppers you can substitute dehydrated bell peppers for fresh peppers by using about 1 tablespoon dried sweet pepper for about 3 tablespoons chopped bell peppers.

History of Bell Peppers

All peppers—sweet bell peppers, mild and crunchy cubanelles, earthy and chocolate-y ancho, fiery habaneros, and the myriad peppers in between—emerged from a common ancestor in the mountains of South America, roughly 16.8 million years ago¹. That ancestral pepper split into five domesticated species of pepper and approximately 30 (or so) wild species around the world, which further diversified into thousands of individual pepper varietals². Most peppers, regardless of where they’re grown or their shape or size, share one quality, and that is the distinguishing heat brought on by the chemical compound capsaicin. Bell peppers lack the gene that encourages capsaicin production and so are mild and sweet, without the hint of heat.

The earliest written record of bell peppers comes from 1699, where they were mentioned in the book "A New Voyage and Description of the Isthmus of America", written by the Welshman Lionel Wafer. For a time, Wafer was a surgeon on a pirate ship. While he was on a land expedition on the Isthmus of Panama, he fell ill and was cared for by the local Cuna tribe, and ate the local food they provided for him. He mentioned just two kinds of peppers that were eaten regularly by the Cuna; a bird pepper, and a bell pepper³. And while that is often cited as definitive proof that the Cuna were eating what we consider to be a bell pepper, Wafer’s one-line reference is wide open to interpretation, and there is some reason to question whether or not that is a proto-version of the bell peppers we know today.

Another book, written in 1707 by British physician Hans Sloane, also refers to the “bell-pepper”, but in the same entry says an alternate name for this pepper is “bonnet pepper”. Sloane further describes the “venomous sting” in the seeds and the pungent smoke that comes from this pepper during roasting, and all this sounds suspiciously like the small, somewhat bell-shaped Scotch Bonnet chile [link]⁴. This pepper could have made its way back and forth between Panama and Jamaica via the trade routes established across the Caribbean by 500 AD⁵, and bears a noticeable resemblance to the local Panamanian pepper, the aji chombo. The aji chombo shares a Scotch Bonnet’s furrows and bell-like shape, though it is longer and even hotter.

In a discussion about bell peppers, it’s important to realize that the language is imprecise, and bell-shaped peppers, whether they’re large or small, that may have contained heat, have historically been called bell peppers. This makes it difficult to determine when the modern, sweet, capsaicin-free bell pepper did emerge. It’s unlikely it came about as the result of natural cross-pollination but was rather the result of selective breeding. The gene that inhibits capsaicin production is recessive⁶, so a plant without capsaicin is less likely to occur when pepper plants—which are prolific and often cross-pollinate—are left to their own devices. Some milder peppers do, naturally, show up in the wild, though they are generally more rare and represent a very small percent of peppers. Further, genetic analysis of pepper plants reveals that sweeter peppers have a less diverse genetic makeup⁷, which also indicates that people have actively worked to breed the heat out of peppers. We know this was an active objective of monks in Spain and Portugal, who were sent bundles of chile peppers by the Spanish court of Ferdinand and Isabella after being put off by the spiciness. The Bell Pepper, as we know it, seems to have descended in part from the mildly spicy, sweet, blunt-ended bullnose pepper, a favorite of Thomas Jefferson’s⁸, and the squat, thick-walled tomato pepper⁹. Peppers that lack spice are relatively new to the culinary scene, though they are much beloved. An article in a gardening journal from 1882 talk about the new, milder peppers that had recently been made available to purchase as seeds that are “always remarkably mild and pleasant to taste—unequaled, in this respect, by any other variety…”¹⁰. The sweet bell pepper is now big business in the US; Americans eat roughly 11 pounds of bell peppers per capita each year¹¹, and this number has been holding steady since 2017.

Bell Pepper Chile Cultivation

Most bell peppers are grown in raised beds, which are a more efficient use of land—they warm up more readily than flat earth, drain efficiently, and are easy to weed and maintain¹². Whether planting on the ground or in beds, the soil should be nutritionally primed for planting by sowing with organics like mulch into the topsoil, two weeks before putting the seeds in the ground¹³.

These peppers grow best in hot weather; ideal planting should take place when the temperature is consistently between 75-85°F during the day, and does not go below 55°F at night. Space beds 6 feet apart, and space plants 8-16 inches away from one another. Once seeds are sown it should take 7-10 days for sprouts to emerge from the soil, though it could take longer if the temperature drops below 55°F¹⁴. After germination, plants should take 35-45 days to reach maturity and can grow anywhere between 1-3 feet tall. They first send out delicate white flowers to attract pollinators; after pollination, the flowers will fall off and the peppers will start to emerge. Raised beds or topsoil should be mulched as the peppers develop, both to feed the soil and to keep it warm¹⁵.  All bell peppers are green when they first emerge, and then turn to their adult color as they ripen. Contrary to popular belief, bell peppers do not change from green to yellow, and then yellow to orange, and orange to red, as they mature. Yellow, orange, and red bell peppers are all individual varietals in the bell pepper family¹⁶.

Harvest bell peppers when the fruit is the desired color and has the correct heft. The walls of the peppers should feel firm and somewhat solid; picking them green means they will not have any ripe softness. They should be harvested by hand in order to avoid damaging the plant, which can potentially be harvested between 2-4 times in a single growing season¹⁷. Each plant can produce as many as 10 peppers in a season, and most of them are picked green. The remaining peppers are left on the plant to fully ripen, changing from green to their mature color and getting softer and sweeter in the process. Mature peppers are often more expensive than green peppers; allowing them to stay on the vine increases their chances of crop damage and requires another round of harvesting. When they are picked they are washed to remove any dirt or insect residue and then sorted according to their size and soundness. They are then packed for sale and kept under cool conditions until they are shipped or further processed¹⁸. Bell peppers are grown in abundance through the US, with California, Florida, and Georgia as the primary pepper-producing states. The US grows approximately 1.6 billion pounds of bell peppers per year, which is only about 65% of annual consumption¹⁹. Almost all peppers grown in the US are packaged for fresh market consumption.

Where are Dried Green Peppers From?

Our Dried Green Bell Peppers are grown in China.

Hungry for More Information

The Best Soup Seasonings
What Spices Go with What Meat
How Well do You Know Your Chiles
How to Make the Best Homemade Soup

References

1. Viano, L. (2016, August 18). Feel the burn-new world chilies traced back nearly 17 million years. Scientific American. Retrieved March 22, 2022, from https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/feel-the-burn-new-world-chilies-traced-back-nearly-17-million-years/

2. Kraft, K. H., Brown, C. H., Nabhan, G. P., Luedeling, E., Luna Ruiz, J. de, Coppens d’Eeckenbrugge, G., Hijmans, R. J., & Gepts, P. (2014). Multiple lines of evidence for the origin of domesticated chili pepper, capsicum annuum , in Mexico. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111(17), 6165–6170. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1308933111

3. Wafer, L. (1903). A new voyage and description of the Isthmus of America: Reprinted from the original edition of 1699. (G. P. Winship, Ed.) The Burrows Brothers Company. Retrieved March 22, 2022 from https://antharky.ucalgary.ca/caadb/sites/antharky.ucalgary.ca.caadb/files/Wafer_1903_A_New_Voyage_and_Description_of_the_Isthmus_of_America.pdf.

4. Presilla, M. E. (2017). Peppers of the Americas: The remarkable capsicums that forever changed flavor. Lorena Jones Books.

5. Smithsonian Institution. (2010). Mesoamerica/Caribbean: Infinity of Nations: Art and history in the collections of the National Museum of the American Indian. Infinity of Nations. Retrieved March 22, 2022, from https://americanindian.si.edu/exhibitions/infinityofnations/mesoamerica-caribbean.html

6. NCSU Extension Staff. (n.d.). Capsicum Annuum (grossum group). Capsicum annuum (Grossum Group) (Bell pepper, green pepper, red pepper, sweet pepper) | North Carolina extension gardener plant toolbox. Retrieved March 22, 2022, from https://plants.ces.ncsu.edu/plants/capsicum-annuum-grossum-group/

7. Bailey, P. (2016, January 24). UC Davis reveals genetic diversity of genes in peppers. Retrieved March 22, 2022, from https://www.ucdavis.edu/news/uc-davis-reveals-genetic-diversity-genes-peppers

8. Davis-Hollander, L. (2016, August 2). All about green and red sweet peppers. Grit: Rural American Know-How. Retrieved March 22, 2022, from https://www.grit.com/farm-and-garden/sweet-peppers-zm0z16sozreg/

9. Andrews, J. (1999). The pepper trail: History & recipes from around the world. University of North Texas Press.

10. Staff. (1882). A New Pepper. The American Garden: A Monthly Illustrated Journal Devoted to Garden Art, Volumes 2-6. Retrieved March 22, 2022, from https://books.google.com/books?id=HuHnfGsZns0C&lpg=RA4-PA23&ots=tX4JxW5eJ1&dq=ruby%20king%20pepper%20history&pg=PP7#v=onepage&q=ruby&f=false.

11. AGMRC Staff. (2021, October). Bell and chili peppers. Retrieved March 22, 2022, from https://www.agmrc.org/commodities-products/vegetables/bell-and-chili-peppers

12, 18. WIFSS Staff. (2016). Bell and chile peppers. Western Institute for Food Safety & Security. Retrieved March 23, 2022, from https://www.wifss.ucdavis.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Peppers_PDF.pdf

13, 15, 19. Bunning, M. (2022, March). Bell peppers. Food Source Information - A food production wiki for public health professionals. Retrieved March 23, 2022, from https://fsi.colostate.edu/bell-peppers/

14. Cornell Gardening Staff. (n.d.). Growing guide: Peppers. Cornell University growing guide. Retrieved March 23, 2022, from http://www.gardening.cornell.edu/homegardening/scene9c8a.html

16. Curley, J. (2018, September 20). Are red, yellow and green peppers all actually the same vegetable? TODAY.com. Retrieved March 23, 2022, from https://www.today.com/food/viral-tweet-about-yellow-green-red-peppers-t137853

17. Titan Farms. (2016). Bell peppers. What We Grow. Retrieved March 23, 2022, from http://www.titanfarms.com/what-we-grow/bell-peppers.aspx