How to Harvest Jalapeños and Ways to use them!

We grew an abundance of Jalapeños this year from seed which we purchased here. I only wanted about 10 plants, so I ended up gifting about 10 plants to friends, family, and random people I met on seed/plant swapping Facebook groups. We got quite a few plants for free through looking at various Facebook groups; like hosta, asters, turmeric, lilies, scarlet runner beans, etc… Not that we really counted but so far, I’d guess we’ve picked about 100 Jalapeños this season.

How to harvest Jalapeños?

The general rule of thumb is the more you pick the more chance of continued yield throughout the season you will have. The easiest way I have found to tell when the Jalapeños are ready to pick is the skin “cracking” as shown below, and then you just lift up on the pepper and it should easily come right off the plant.

So, What did we do with all those Jalapeños?

• We dehydrated some of them. If you are going to try to dehydrate Jalapeños or any hot peppers, it will create a very strong odor. We ended up bringing the dehydrator out on the porch but even then, the odor was still strong. We used the lowest setting, 95 degrees, and let them sit overnight until they were bone dry. Once they were done, we packaged them in food safe mylar bags.
• Pete made Jalapeños with bacon and cream cheese for himself.
• Pete is Puerto Rican, so he used 30 Jalapeños to experiment with making Pique, a traditional Puerto Rican hot sauce. This was his first time making it himself, so we pieced together suggestions from a few different recipes. The following recipe is what we ended up using.
  • Pique Recipe (2023 Version)
    • To Make 3 64 Oz. Mason Jars
      • Pinch of Salt
      • 2 Bay Leaves per Jar
      • 15 Cracked Peppercorns per Jar
      • Can of Chunky Pineapples with Juice
      • Split the following between the Jars:
        • 30 diced Jalapeños
        • 2 onions cut into quarters
        • whole garlic clove, mashed
      • After the Ingredients are in each jar, fill the jar halfway with vinegar and the rest with water. We tried apple cider vinegar for one jar and white vinegar for the other two jars.
    • Let the jars sit for 2-14 days depending on how potent you want the Pique. You can blend the ingredients to make a thicker sauce or use it as is. Pete likes the Pique that was made with the apple cider vinegar the best.

Those are just some of our ideas for our harvest this year. We may still make Cowboy Candy (candied jalapeños), so look out for that post in the future.