How to Properly Roast Peppers

Today I’ll guide you on how to cook peppers and the various cooking methods, and how to easily peel them.
Delicious and colorful with notable antioxidant properties, due to the high content of vitamin A, C, and beta-carotene, as well as diuretic and purifying properties.

Peppers are also very rich in minerals, particularly potassium, making them a perfect ally for the health of the cardiovascular system.
Once peeled, they lend themselves to multiple recipes beyond the Sicilian salad, such as making meatloaf, ring cake, and rolls.
I prefer to use peppers of various colors not only for a chromatic effect but also because they have various qualities that differentiate them:
Peppers have a rather low-calorie content, about 27 calories per 100 grams, which can vary depending on the variety: green peppers, in fact, provide 20 kcal per 100 grams and red ones about 30 kcal.

For yellow peppers, the caloric content per 100 grams is about 26 kcal.
Red ones have a crunchy and rather firm flesh and a strong flavor; yellow ones are fleshier and juicier and are richer in antioxidants; green ones are harvested early and have a sharp and slightly acidic taste.
Generally, green peppers are less sweet and more difficult to digest, even without skin, while red and yellow peppers boast greater sweetness and digestibility.

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Cost: Very economical
Rest time: 3 Hours
Preparation time: 1 Minute
Portions: 4
Cooking methods: Slow cooking
Cuisine: Italian
Seasonality: All seasons

152.43 Kcal

calories per serving

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Energy 152.43 (Kcal)
Carbohydrates 8.49 (g) of which sugars 8.40 (g)
Proteins 1.82 (g)
Fat 12.27 (g) of which saturated 1.67 (g)of which unsaturated 0.00 (g)
Fibers 3.81 (g)
Sodium 100.95 (mg)

Indicative values for a portion of 200 g processed in an automated way starting from the nutritional information available on the CREA^* and FoodData Central^** databases. It is not food and / or nutritional advice.

^* CREATES Food and Nutrition Research Center: https://www.crea.gov.it/alimenti-e-nutrizione https://www.alimentinutrizione.it ^** U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service. FoodData Central, 2019. https://fdc.nal.usda.gov

Ingredients

Let’s go shopping

2.2 lbs peppers (of various colors)
1 clove garlic
as needed salt
as needed basil
3.5 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

How to Properly Roast Peppers

Tools

What we need

1 Grill cast iron or electric
1 Oven
1 Container with lid
1 Knife
1 Plate

Steps

How to Properly Roast Peppers

I prefer cast iron because it’s resistant to compression and corrosion; cast iron cannot undergo plastic processing as it is not malleable, neither hot nor cold;
It evenly distributes heat, and once it’s hot, we can lower the gas and therefore save energy.
Wash the peppers and leave them whole, cook them on each side until the skin becomes black.
The temperature should be 392°F. To save time and energy, peppers should be cut in half or into 3 parts depending on their size, so that the surface is well exposed to the grill.
Cook for about 5 minutes, then check and change position if necessary, depending on whether your grill cooks more on one side than the other.
Pepper cooked this way will remain crunchier.
This method seems the tastiest, but actually, it’s the most harmful to health.
Peppers should be placed on the embers when there is no longer a live flame or on a grill placed over the embers, and you must turn them often until a black skin forms.
Now that we have learned all the cooking methods, let’s see how to easily peel them.
The first method, the grandmothers’ method, was to put the peppers in a paper bag, close it, and wait for them to cool down.
But today, we don’t know what materials are used to produce bags on the market.
I would opt for a container with a lid, preferably glass or steel.
The peppers should cool as you prefer, outside or inside the fridge, which is the method I prefer.
Once they are nice and cold, the skin will come off more easily, just occasionally moisten your hands to prevent it from sticking.
Then remove the filaments and seeds,
Cut the slices wide or narrow depending on what you need to prepare.
For the Sicilian salad, I cut them very thin, collect them in a bowl, and season them with garlic, salt, extra virgin olive oil, and plenty of basil.
Here are the roasted peppers ready for the salad.