It can be fun to try new things on the homestead. One of our fun projects was using our surplus of peppers to make paprika. Paprika is usually a go-to spice for us and we were able to add some great flavor to our meals with our own version. Once we learned that any pepper could be used in paprika, we were ready to experiment.
My husband likes to grow all kinds of peppers and even when other things don’t grow in the garden, we can usually count on the peppers. The peppers we use for the paprika are usually ones with mild or sweet flavors. Red Skin and Anaheim both have a nice mild flavor and we usually grow many of them. A couple of nice sweet peppers we have used are California Wonder and Big Bertha.
We love our garden peppers.
The first thing we do is dehydrate the peppers with our dehydrator. Our $15 thrift store find has served us well. After that, we use a small coffee grinder to mix and grind the peppers. The coffee grinder was a wedding present, but we don’t drink coffee. Fortunately, we have found other great uses for it. We usually mix multiple peppers and experiment with flavor. One combination I loved was mixing the Red Skin and the Big Bertha peppers. When we are done grinding the peppers, we just put the paprika in a jar and it is ready to go.
Our coffee grinder has many great uses.
Usually when I make chicken I like to keep the seasoning simple. I like to sauté the chicken in coconut oil and the only seasoning is usually paprika and a little pink salt like Himalayan. The chicken ends up with great flavor this way, and I really loved our homemade paprika with the chicken. It shows how great simplicity can be when it comes to cooking.
If you are looking for something different to do with an abundance of peppers, paprika might be worth a try. It takes many peppers so it is only worth it if you have almost too many. It is not a project we do all the time, but we do love the results.
