Roasted Peppers

There are many ways of roasting peppers. Some use a grill; others char them under a broiler.

Many roast their bell peppers over an open gas flame directly on a burner on the stovetop. While such a technique produces smokey and delicious roasted peppers, it also makes a mess in your kitchen, no matter how careful you are.

A quicker, simpler, and much more hands-off way of roasting red peppers is in the oven, at high temperature, on a baking sheet. If you have an air fryer, that works too.

Oven roasting is a simple, clean, and healthy way to make smokey and juicy roasted peppers.

Roasting improves flavor, helps maximize the absorption of certain nutrients like vitamin A, and makes the peppers more digestible.

After roasting, we let the peppers cool down, peel them, and season them in a simple marinade of extra virgin olive oil, red wine vinegar, garlic, and basil. This is our favorite way of making and eating roasted peppers.

Ingredients

Bell peppers

You can use any color bell pepper. Red bell peppers are the sweetest when roasted, but yellow, orange, and green are delicious too.

We use a mix of yellow and red bell peppers.

Basil Marinade

To make a basil marinade, you'll need extra virgin olive oil, red wine or balsamic vinegar, garlic, fresh basil leaves, salt, and pepper.

Parsley marinade

To make a parsley marinade, you'll need extra virgin olive oil, white vinegar, capers, parsley, garlic, salt, and pepper.

Preheat the oven to 450°F or 230°C. Wash and dry the bell peppers and arrange them on a sheet pan lined with parchment paper.

Roast in the oven for about 30 to 40 minutes until they are soft and charred outside.

Turn on the side (45 degrees turn) after 20 minutes.

Transfer roasted peppers to a bowl, cover with plastic wrap or foil, and let cool down for 30 minutes.

Note: while in the bowl, the steam trapped by the wrap will loosen up the skin of the peppers, and it'll be easier for you to remove it.

Peel the peppers with your hands, remove their seeds and the stem, break them into smaller strips and transfer them into a bowl or serving platter.

Tip: try not to use any water to preserve the most flavor at this stage. The peppers might still be hot, so don't burn yourself. Be careful about the hot liquid that might hide inside them.

Season with olive oil, vinegar, crushed garlic, salt, black pepper, and fresh basil leaves or parsley.

Marinate for half an hour (or more) before serving.

Roasted bell peppers are a versatile recipe, and you can use them in sandwiches, to make hummus, in wraps, on pizzas, in a soup, for a red pepper pasta dish, to make red pepper pesto, romesco sauce, crostini, or bruschetta.

You can chop them up and add them to a rice salad, farro salad, pasta salad, couscous salad, quinoa salad, chickpea salad, and chickpea pasta salad.

Finally, you can eat them as an appetizer or a side dish, with a slice of grilled bread or homemade focaccia.

Italian style marinade

A common way to marinate roasted peppers in Italy is with flat-leave parsley. Mix 6 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil, 3 tablespoon white vinegar, 1 tablespoon capers, 1 handful of chopped parsley, 2 crushed garlic cloves, salt, and pepper to taste.

Asian Style Marinade

Mix 2 crushed cloves of garlic, 10 mint leaves, a small handful of chopped coriander, 2 tablespoon of peanut oil, 4 tablespoon of soy or tamari sauce, 1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil, 1 tablespoon lime juice, 1 tablespoon of agave syrup or maple syrup.

Greek Style Marinade

Mix 2 crushed cloves of garlic, 6 tablespoon greek extra virgin olive oil, 3 tablespoon white wine vinegar, juice of half a lemon, a big handful of chopped parsley, 10 leaves of chopped mint, 1 teaspoon of Greek dried oregano, salt, and pepper to taste.

Store seasoned roasted bell peppers in the refrigerator for about 4 to 5 days. Put them in a bowl, airtight container, or jar and cover them with olive oil. Let them out of the fridge at room temperature for about 30 minutes before serving them.

You can also freeze roasted peppers; however, in this case, we recommend not marinating the peppers.

All you need to do is roast, peel and seed the peppers, place them in a bowl or container suitable for freezing, write the date on the container, and freeze for up to 3 months.

To defrost them, take them out of the freezer, then let them thaw slowly in the refrigerator. Once completely thawed, you can proceed with the marinade described in the recipe above.

Tips

Rinsing with water or not?

To keep the maximum roasted and smokey flavor, avoid rinsing your peppers under running water after they are roasted.

Scraping the peel and the seeds with a knife or with your hands is best.

Crush the garlic

We recommend crushing the garlic rather than adding minced or sliced garlic to the marinade. Crushed garlic will add plenty of flavor to the peppers without overpowering them with a garlic taste.

Let marinate

Marinating adds flavor. Let your peppers stay in the marinade for at least half an hour before serving. You can prepare your peppers one day in advance; they will taste fantastic.

Serve at room temperature

If you store roasted peppers in the refrigerator, take them out and let them be at room temperature for about 30 minutes before serving.

Serving roasted peppers cold reduces their flavor.

If you love roasted peppers, or you're trying to increase your veggie intake a little, take a look at these healthy sides:

• Roasted artichokes and potatoes: an easy one-tray serving of vegetables!
• Sweet potato salad with roasted potatoes
• Garlic and lemon roasted broccoli: fork tender and crispy
• Shaved Brussels sprout salad with a creamy mustard dressing
• Red cabbage slaw with walnuts and fresh apple
• Oven-roasted Brussels sprouts with a sweet syrup-vinaigrette
• Baked and tender sweet potatoes: a favorite vegetable side dish for Thanksgiving!
• Roasted cauliflower with fresh herbs and lemon

For many more side dishes ideas, check out our sides category page.