True story of a text I got this week: “I offered to cut the peppers at the family reunion because I knew how!” I taught this young friend the fastest way to cut a bell pepper, and she felt confident doing it! So, let’s attack the pepper issue. They’re kinda roly-poly and have lots of little bitty seeds that go everywhere. Is there a best way to cut bell peppers?
Pepper basics
Absolutely! First, some basics. There are male and female peppers, that are said to have a variety of differences (check all the scoop here). The big thing is the females have four lobes at the bottom, and the males have three. I prefer the females since they’re symmetrical, but really you can deal with either one easily.
It’s hard to cut a bell pepper effectively because of its shape. What you need is a flat edge. So, turn it on its side and slice off the roundness of the lobes at the bottom. Now stand it on that flat surface. Draw an imaginary line from the cleft between two lobes to the next cleft between two lobes, and cut straight down on that line.
Turn the pepper and continue to repeat the process for each lobe. (For a male pepper, simply divide the whole pepper into four parts with these vertical cuts.) You might not ace it the first time, but with a little practice, you can avoid the seeds completely, and simply throw away the stem, core, and seeds all in one piece!
What size to cut the pieces?
Once you have just the four big pieces, you can cut them down to whatever size you need. Cutting each lobe into 4 to 6 “cubes” makes a pretty good bite-sized piece. I freeze mine this way and just rinse to defrost. If you know you need them chopped finer (like with your diced onions), slice the lobe into strips, then crossways to get smaller pieces. Yep, I’m still using my chef knife for this so I can go through several slices at once. Freeze 6 ounces of diced onion (get those instructions here) with 6 ounces of diced peppers in a quart-sized freezer bag for a quick shortcut to use in quick recipes like Easiest Taco Chicken and Veggies!
My friend’s excited text totally sums up why I want to focus on some really small skills like the fastest way to cut bell peppers. These tips can make all the difference in speed when cooking. We assume everyone knows how to do this stuff, but if they don’t, they sure don’t want anyone to know. Don’t miss something crucial YOU haven’t learned yet…sign up below to receive tips and tricks in your inbox each week!
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