Since there were so many requests for this recipe, I decided to just add it here. I want to remind everyone to please do not forget to use gloves when cutting and handling the cut peppers. If you do not use gloves, you risk getting hot pepper juice in your eye and also on your skin.
I wanted to point out that some of these measurements are estimates. Since I didn’t expect to write up this recipe, and my mother-in-law just basically gave us her notes, I didn’t keep track of everything. These are my best estimates and you may need a little more or less of the vinegar and water mix.
We tried these last weekend and they were delicious! Since we left the seeds in, they’re a little spicy. You will want to experiment to see if you would rather have yours de-seeded or with the seeds left in.
***Added: It has been brought to my attention that some people do not feel comfortable with open kettle canning, which is what this method is, and feel it is unsafe. If you do not feel comfortable using this method and/or feel it’s unsafe, follow the recipe below but after putting on the lids and rings, process the jars of peppers in a hot water bath for 10 minutes. (Many thanks to the reader who pointed this out!)
Enjoy!
Ingredients:
- 8 pint jars, lids and seals
- 8 whole garlic cloves (optional)
- 2 1/2 to 3 lbs. of banana peppers (this is an estimate)
- 4 tsp. salt (you will use 1/2 tsp. per jar)
- 4 tsp. alum (optional – 1/2 tsp. per jar) *see my post about alum
- 7 cups white vinegar (estimate)
- 7 cups water (estimate)
Directions:
- Prepare jars. I chose to just wash my jars in hot soapy water. I turned my oven on to 175 to put the jars in to keep them warm after washing.
- Wash whole banana peppers to remove any dirt. Remove tops from peppers and cut peppers into rings. I cut my rings sort of thick, but you can cut them as thick or thin as you want. Also, de-seed if you choose to de-seed your banana peppers.
- In a large pot, combine 7 cups of water and 7 cups of white vinegar. Heat on high until boiling.
- At the same time, in a small pot, place jar lids and boil.
- Once the jars and lids are boiling, turn on low heat.
- Add 1 clove of garlic to empty jar, then pack banana pepper rings tightly into the jar. Add 1/2 tsp. salt and 1/2 tsp. alum to the peppers. Pour hot vinegar-water mixture over the peppers. Immediately put on lid and ring to seal.
- Repeat with remaining peppers and jars.
Once the jars start to cool, they will seal.
The recipe for pepper rings looks great I want to try it, but I would process them for about 10 min, in a boiling water bath. It really is not safe to just fill jars and let them seal.
Hi Cathy,
Here are my thoughts on this: this is an old recipe, and I’ve been eating my mother-in-law’s peppers for 12 years now and haven’t experienced food poisoning yet. LOL! In this part of the country, open kettle canning is still a popular method among us “country folk,” but I will add a disclaimer or optional method to the recipe just in case someone doesn’t feel comfortable doing it exactly this way and has a canner they can use.
Thanks for bringing this to my attention!
Hi Jennifer,
Your peppers look lovely. I am originally from central PA where we have a large Italian American population. Very famous in our region is a version of your canned banana peppers. We do them w/ garlic and oregano and sometimes will add green olives and mushrooms too. We can them w/ olive oil rather than the vinegar/water combo. They are commonly served in mom & pop Italian restaurants w/ bread at the beginning of a meal. We also eat them on sandwiches, salads and pizza. They are delicious and folks actually compete w/ one another as to who has the best peppers.
I’ve never had to make my own b/c there was always someone handing out freebies. Well, I now live in NC and they are not to be found here. I have a “recipe” (use that term loosely) from an old Italian woman which is lacking in specifics so I was searching for help. Thanks for your tips and wish me luck!
I just recently developed a taste for banana pepper rings, which I tried on my Subway Sandwich.
I am planting my garden now so wanted to plant banana peppers and be prepared for the canning season later this summer. Your recipe looks good and also the one mentioned by the Italian lady, which I would like to try also.
Thanks much.
Hi Don,
Thanks for leaving a comment! And good luck with your garden and banana peppers (which are great raw, btw, if you like it spicy!). I just now noticed the “Italian lady’s” comment and wow, does that sound good! Maybe she’ll come back and let us know how she’s going to can hers this year.
And you be sure to come back and let us know how it goes!
Hi, I was just wondering where you go about getting alum? I’ve never heard of it, but from reading up on it see that it might help keep the peppers crisp so i was interested in how to get some.
Thanks
Jennifer S, too weird as my mom and I were just talking about this. These peppers that are in the pic above from last summer? They are still as crisp as ever; however, I am wondering if the alum is used maybe for the color. My rings are not as vibrant in color now as my mother-in-law’s (who uses alum and canned hers around the same time as we did), so I am going to have to ask her exactly what she uses it for.
Anyway, I believe we found the alum at a Super Wal-Mart. I can’t remember now, but since that’s where we do the majority of our shopping, I’m guessing that’s where.
Hope this helps!
I used your recipe yesterday in my very first canning effort. Walmart was out of alum (everyone else is canning, too, I guess!)so I decided to try omit it. I hope they are good! My jars look just like your picture. We are getting oodles of peppers this year and we love them on salads and sandwiches, so thanks for sharing your recipe!
I have found many recipes for the banana peppers and this one sounds easy, the one question I have is what does the alum do? And since you don’t process the peppers are they crisp like the banana rings you get in the store that is what my husband is wanting it to turn out like. I am green when it comes to the peppers, I can every year but this will be my first for peppers. I have tons of them LOL
Thanks Margaret
i think the alum is to help preserve crispness, but i’m not 100% sure, i know my grandmother uses it with her pickles for something of that degree
So I used your recipe the other night!!!! Everything turned out great!!! Except my cloves of garlic turned green…..maybe from the yellow food color I added to the vinegar/water. The jars sealed on their own…….how long are they supposed to sit before using them???
Hi Jamie Lynn,
Glad it turned out great for you! Can I ask why you used yellow food color? I’m totally curious about why you did that.
I remember that my husband and I cracked a jar open the very next day.
Just wondering….have you ever added jalapenos in with the banana pepper rings??
Hi April,
Last year was that my husband and I grew a garden and canned anything, and we didn’t grow any jalapenos last year. This year we are growing jalapenos and yes, we’re throwing some in this year. My husband also wants to can jalapenos alone. We’ll see how it turns out!
I use my Dads recipe and it is pretty much identical to your. I saw you were asking about the alum and I think it is used for a preservative. To keep the peppers a pretty yellow my Dad would always add a little ground turmeric to the water/vin mix and it colors te water a nice shade of yellow…just a little at a time until you get the color your looking for. Once its oured into the jars with the peppers you can not tell that the water has any color to it.
Also, it has always been our expierence that once you put your peppers in the jar and pour boiling water over them it pretty much kills anything in the peppers. We have been dong it that way for years without any problems. However, sometimes Iwill place mine back in the boiling water once the lids and rings have been place on them and let them “cook” for just a minute, maybe two…..But everytime I left them on for more than a minute or so the peppers would not be a “brickle” or “crispy”. I thinkit because it would continue to “cook” the peppers.
I’m guessing it’s OK to use a metal pan for heating vinegar and water. This is my first experience and I read others that say no metal but I wasn’t sure if that meant the pan to heat the vinegar and water too or not.
Thanks for your help!
jfp
I have been looking a couple of days for a recipe like this. Cant’ wait to try it out and enjoy my own. Typically it is 24 hours after preparing that you can actually eat the product. Is that the case here as well? Thanks,
Scott
Instead of alum you can use a grape leaf in your mix…for some reason that takes the place of the alum. Just add and stir with the other ingredients…bring to boil and pour over pepper rings. Enjoy.
I have a lot of banana peppers right now, and was looking for a “recipe” like this. Thanks for posting, I can’t wait to give it a try!
I can’t wait to try this recipe. Thanks. I once had a recipe for hot califlower that was packed the same way, but I lost it. I remember you put into the jars a banana pepper, a toe of garlic, turimic and some form of seed. If you now the recipe please send it to me. Thanks
First of all, thank you for the recipe! My husband and I just tried a jar of the peppers and they were great on our pizza we had for supper! I still have a large quantity of peppers growing in my garden and would like to try the Italian style, with the green olives, mushrooms, and olive oil. The problem is I have been looking for days for a recipe and can’t find anything. I was wondering if someone had a recipe that they could share with me? Thanks so much!
here is a little something about alum:
Alum is a salt that in chemistry is a combination of an alkali metal, such as sodium, potassium, or ammonium and a trivalent metal, such as aluminum, iron, or chromium. The most common form, potassium aluminum sulfate, or potash alum, is one form that has been used in food processing. Another, sodium aluminum sulfate, is an ingredient in commercially produced baking powder. (Have you never noticed the faint metallic taste in baking powder? It comes from the alum.)
The potassium-based alum has been used to produce crisp cucumber and watermelon-rind pickles as well as maraschino cherries, where the aluminum ions strengthen the fruits’ cell-wall pectins.
Alum is approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as a food additive, but in large quantities — well, an ounce or more — it is toxic to humans. As a result, efforts have been made and are being made to wean us of our alum dependency. The U.S. Department of Agriculture says that if good quality produce and modern canning methods are employed, there is no need to use alum to bolster the crispness of our pickles and cherries. In any event, the department says, even if alum is used to soak the pickles, it should not be used in the final pickling liquid.
hi, i have tons of banana peppers…but when i taste them, they taste like nothing…there’s no taste to them at all? does this mean they’re not ripe yet? should they have some sort of taste? the ones i get from subway are the ones i wanna make… does your recipe make them taste like that? do you think the variety of pepper i planted is the wrong one? is the recipe you made from hot banana peppers? or the ones with no taste? thanks for the info, tracy
Hi Tracy,
Yes, fresh banana peppers have a taste. I don’t really know how to describe it other than they’re sort of sweet and they’re not really that hot (even the hot banana peppers) when they’re fresh. I know what you mean with the Subway peppers – ours are somewhat like subway, but not exactly the same because the Subway peppers taste like the ones you get out of a jar you buy at the store and of course there are more ingredients/additives in those.
If you’ve already picked the peppers and they’re not ripe yet, you can leave them for two days or so and they will continue to ripen, but yeah, they definitely should have a taste.
I was going to ask about that as well. The ones I planted, when ripe, taste a little like bell peppers. I thought I planted the wrong kind too lol.
Just a tip I found on preserving the crispness of pickles, etc.. use grape leaves.
I do a lot of canning & freezing; have put up more than 150 quarts of veggies, pickles and juices so far this year; but had not been able to find a recipe for my banana peppers till this. I’m excited to try this as my banana peppers have just been over abundant this year. Usually I freeze them and use them in a variety of recipes, but like everyone else I love these peppers on subs, sandwiches, in my salsa, etc. By the way, these peppers are great to add to canned V8 juice, salsa and marinara sauce. Thanks again.
F.Y.I. – aluminum has been found to cause alzheimers! I use pickling lime in my pickle recipes to preserve crispness. I will have to try and see if that may work for these. Use Turmeric for that nice yellow color. Our family has rid our house of preservatives and additives and have found our health only keeps getting better! Thanks for the recipe! It is very good but we will be leaving the alum out.
Thanks for the pepper info. I recently picked up a peck of hot banana peppers, planning to can them in a tomato paste sauce. But after my husband tasted a raw pepper, he said they were not hot enough for the recipe, but more sweet in tasted (the recipe I got from an Aunt – hubby loved the canned peppers) I was looking for another way to can, and came across yours. I noticed in your comment section you said even hot banana peppers would not taste hot fresh – does the heat intensify when canning? Thanks – I’m a newbie to canning too…just put up my first 9 pints of bread and butter pickles this week:-)
Hi Karen,
You know, our fresh hot banana peppers are funny. What I mean is 99 percent of the time, they’re just sweet, no flame whatsoever, and then once in a while, we get one that you touch your tongue to it, and your tongue’s on fire! LOL! I noticed that the bigger our peppers are, the more bite they have to them. I’m not sure why, though?
But yes, when we canned ours last year, they seemed to have gotten hotter after having been canned and sit for a bit. They’re still not flaming hot, even a year later, but you know that you’ve eaten them.
If your husband is looking for a really, really good hot pepper that is actually hot when you eat it fresh, try the Hungarian Wax instead of banana peppers. Also, you can try leaving the seeds when you can your hot banana peppers. That may give them a bit of heat too and may be the reason our canned banana peppers have some bite to them.
Hope this helps!
Thanks for a great tasting and simple recipe for my peppers. These are the best ever. The only change I made was adding 1 teaspoon of yellow mustard seed to each jar.
It really added some great flavor.
Hi, My name is Pam and I received a jar of peppers in Olive oil and I’m dying to figure out how they were made. The woman that gave them to me won’t give me the recipe cuz it’s an old family recipe. I’ve never canned before so I want to be careful. A few things that she told me was she packs the jars and turns them upside down for 24 hrs to seal. She also lets them sit for 6 weeks before opening them. It tastes like mostly olive oil and they are able to sit on the shelf even after being opened. It looks like she puts italian spices in with the peppers and garlic. If anyone has a recipe that they can share to help me I would be very excited!!! Thank you. Pam
Why white vinegar? All the recipes I’ve seen use “white vinegar”. Would apple cider vinegar work as well and maybe add some flavor? I can’t wait to try the recipes given and fiddle around with the addatives, grape leaves, ground turmeric, and mustard seeds. I think I will also try a few saffron strands in the boiling liquid for the color.
Jennifer,
I don’t know if I did something wrong but some of my jars sealed and some did not. I wiped the rims down real well and am not sure what could have gone wrong. I am very new to the canning world and was wondering how to re-seal or if that is even possible. Any info you could give would be awesome! Thanks for the post!
Hi Ashley M,
I have never had a jar not seal (yet), so I had to call on the experts (my husband, my mother-in-law, and my mom).
It could be that you didn’t hear the “ping” of the jar sealing, so be sure to check the lid to make sure. You can tell if a lid has sealed by the little raised area in the middle. You can also press on the raised area, if there is one, and it should pop right back out. If there’s no raised area, then, yes, it didn’t seal.
If the lids didn’t really seal, since you asked this question 2 hours ago and I didn’t see it right away, I would not keep the contents of the jar unless you’ve stored them some other way.
If you catch jars straight away that have not sealed, you need to start the lid process over with different lids because sometimes you do actually get a bad lid. So boil new lid(s) and do it over again immediately.
Hope this helps and I’m sorry I didn’t see this sooner this morning! I hope you don’t lose any of your peppers. If you have any other questions, let us know.
I’m new at this..Do you use Canning salt or Iodized salt for canning the pepper rings?
Hi Dan,
Use canning salt. You can use iodized salt, but it may cause a cloudiness to develop inside the jar.
Hope this helps!
Thank you i’m looking forward to trying this..Can’t wait till peppers are ready..Again that you
You’re welcome! And please come back and let us know how everything turns out!
I was just wondering how long do the banana peppers need to sit before you can enjoy them? I know that some recipes call for canned goods to sit for a few weeks before eating them!
Hi Tabatha,
I remember my husband and I only waiting 2 weeks to dig into ours and they were great, nice and crisp and perfect in color and delicious! I would wait at least 2 weeks, if you can.
HTH!
1st time at canning , as well. Going to venture tonite. Didn’t see response to boiling in metal pot. Is
it okay? Also, could I just put the jars in the dishwasher since they will still be hot when I get them out?
Thanks !!!!
2 plants & I have 107 peppersn & still more blooms. Very easy & high
yield veggie~. Have thoroughly enjoyed that side, hope the canning goes
as well.
I’ve been canning peppers for years now, I really enjoy it, especially finding a new recipe thats really good, is exciting. Last year, my husband tried his Aunt Marcia’s peppers, and really liked the way hers tasted, so I’m switching recipes this year from mine to hers and I’d like to share it with you.
3 Quarts of White Vinegar
6 Quarts of Water
1 Dixie Cup of Canning Salt ( she said she used about 3/4 cup)
About 3 Tablespoons of minced garlic ( she said she used the minced garlic in the jar, I used fresh and a tad more than the 3 Tablespoons, we LOVE garlic)
4 Tablespoons of Horseradish ( again, she used fresh, shredded Horseradish, I used the jar kind)
Add ALL ingredients in a BIG pot, bring to boil.
She said she adds the pepper rings to liquid in the pot after the water boils,Turn stove off then… I do not add my peppers to the pot.
I add my sliced pepper rings to my washed, sanitized, HOT jars (along with another smashed clove or two of garlic, THEN add the HOT liquid mixture, leaving the 1/2 inch at the lip of jar, take a spoon and push down on your peppers to get the air bubbles out of jar. Place lids, and rings that have been placed in boiling water on jar, not sealing tightly yet, just snug, place in a deep pot of hot water, bring to boil, boil for 10 minutes, remove, allow to cool, making sure your lids “pop”. Then you may tighten lids. Very yummy. The Horseradish gives it a bit of bite, and it smell so good! Aunt Marcia said this will make 12 pints and 3 1/2 quarts jars. If you need to cut recipe in half or whatever, just remember that 4 cups= 1 quart……Enjoy!
Oh, my gosh, Tracey! Thank you so much for sharing your recipe and I have printed it out!
It sounds great, and my husband will love, love, love the added horseradish. We have so many peppers this year that we’ll have plenty to try out this recipe. Thank you again!!
This is the 1st time I ever planted sweet banana peppers in my garden (we do not like hot)& they are doing great–getting lots of peppers so was searching for a good recipe to can them. This was the 1st site I went too in my search and thank you for all the good information.
I did continue searching since a few questions were brought up on here on by others.
One was the use of vinegar and/or olive oil. I liked the idea of using olive oil, but read that vinegar is needed to can safely to kill bacteria.
I found a recipe that was pretty similar to yours but added a teaspoon of olive oil to each jar for Italian peppers. They also added some basil & italian seasoning.
Also, on the question of alum–it was used for crispness but advised not using. If anyone is interested why, I found it on http://www.ochef.com/1080.htm “What is Alum?”
I am glad I don’t need it becuase now I can start canning tomorrow and not have to go to the store to hunt for it.
I like the idea of using grape leaves also. Can’t wait to try these out!
I have been looking for a recipe for pickled pepper rings and will try this one this weekend. My husband and I have been growing banana peppers for years and I just have never gotten around to canning them. I thought there would be sugar in the recipe to cut the tartness of the vinegar. I am glad to see there isn’t, we sure don’t need the extra calories!
Thank you for posting your recipe.
I have a receipe with the oil in the canning. soak banana pepper rings in apple cider vinegar over night for 18 hrs. Next day pour off vinegar. Pack into pint jars. Add to each jar, 1/2 tsp italian seasoning, 1/2 tsp. garlic powder, 1/2 inch olive oil, I use 1/8 cup then fill to 1/2 inch top with boiling water. Process for 20 minutes in water bath.
Thank you so much for your recipe for banana peppers – I have a recipe using olive oil but was looking for something different and this is perfect! After looking at the posts, my recipe for peppers marinated in Oil is as follows:
3lbs hot peppers
7 to 14 cloves garlic
7 T dried oregano
5c. vinegar
1c. water
1 T plus 1t pickling salt
3/4c. olive oil
Pack one or two garlic cloves and 1T oregano into each jar. Pack peppers into jars, leaving 1″ headspace. Combine vinegar, water, salt, and oil and bring to a boil. Simmer 5 minutes. Pour hot solution over peppers, leaving 1″ headspace. Make sure oil is equally distributed across jars – there should be no more than 2T of oil per pint. Process in boil bath 15 – 20 minutes.
How do you use the grapeleaves? Are they just fresh leaves, if so how many? I have used alum before but grape leaves are new to me.