How to Can Stuffed Pickled Peppers

These beautiful, vibrant stuffed pickled peppers are a labor of love. Small, miniature sweet peppers are stuffed with shredded cabbage and then packed in brine and canned. They’re super delicious and the perfect small bite or appetizer!

These stuffed sweet bell peppers are a work of art.

Canning and preserving tell a story. The craft is passed down through families, with each generation adding its own unique spin.

I learned to can sitting at the kitchen table with my mom and grandma. And one of the recipes they taught me was this stuffed pickled pepper, which tells its own story. The recipe is most likely eastern European, passed down to my family from great grandparents who immigrated decades ago. In fact, these exact miniature red bell pepper seeds have been saved for over 80 years.

Each year, we sit down to remove the caps and seeds from the peppers, leaving a small opening. After stuffing the cavity with shredded cabbage, they’re packed in pint jars. Once packed, we pour a simple brine over and process them in a quick water bath.

These are time-consuming, tedious, and… work. But the result is a memory that tastes delicious: a simple pepper stuffed with pickled cabbage. One taste and you’ll see why these are worth the effort.

Everything you’ll need to make this recipe.

The best part about these stuffed peppers is how few ingredients there are. In fact, the peppers themselves only have two: peppers and cabbage. And the brine is a super simple, clean brine. Here are some of the ingredients:

• Canning salt provides a clear brine. It has the finest salt granules and no additives. But note that canning salt measures differently from other salts with larger granules.
• Sugar works in two ways in this recipe. First, it will temper out the acidity of the brine. Without any sugar, the brine would be too “sharp.” Second, the sugar helps to bring out the sweetness of the peppers.
• Miniature sweet bell peppers are the key to this recipe. Some call them “door knob” peppers. There’s no spice but simply a delicious pepper flavor.

Here’s how to make this recipe.

The process of preparing these sweet stuffed pickled peppers is definitely a labor of love. Removing the seeds and inner pith from each pepper is a time commitment, and that’s why my family only prepares one batch of these per summer. But each time we have the finished canned jars, we’re so glad that we did it. Here are the steps to prepare these stuffed peppers:

1. Remove the stems from the peppers. Using the tip of a knife, insert the tip under the “cap” of the pepper. Working around the entire stem, use the knife to loosen the cap. Once loose, remove it and discard it.

2. Remove the seeds from the center of the pepper. Using a knife or a skewer, use the tip of a tool to move around the inside of the pepper. This will remove the seeds and any of the interior pith. Turn the pepper upside down and gently tap it against a solid surface. This will also aid in getting some of the seeds out of the interior.

3. Wash and dry the peppers. Gently rinse the peppers to ensure there are no remaining seeds inside. Then set them on a towel to dry thoroughly before stuffing them.

4. Stuff the peppers with cabbage. Use a mandolin or other tool to shred the cabbage. Take the shredded cabbage and stuff each pepper. My grandma always found a large piece of cabbage to place over the opening to prevent the small pieces of cabbage from escaping while in the brine. Brush off the sides of the peppers to ensure there are no stray pieces of cabbage.

5. Pack the jars with peppers. To clean and sterilized glass jars, place the peppers into the jars, making sure to adjust the spacing to fit as many as possible into the jar. Since the peppers are round, there will be some dead space, which the brine will fill in. Fill each jar with the peppers, reserving ½-inch of “headspace” at the top.

6. Prepare the brine and pour it over the peppers. To a kettle, add the water, vinegar, salt, and sugar. Place this on the stove and allow it to come to a boil to dissolve the salt and sugar. Once dissolved, using a funnel, slowly pour in the brine over the peppers, again preserving the necessary headspace. Wipe off the top of each jar with a paper towel wetted with hot water. Then place on the lid the ring, and tighten until fingertip tightness.

7. Process the jars in the water bath. On a stovetop, heat water in a heavy-bottom kettle fitted with a rack. Using a jar lifter, place each glass jar filled with the stuffed peppers into the water, one at a time. Make sure that once all of the jars are in the canner that the tops of the jars are covered with water. If they are not, simply add some hot water to the pot.

8. Remove the jars from the water bath. After 10 minutes of boiling, remove the jars from the canner, tipping them slightly while still over the kettle to remove any water from the tops of the jars. Allow the jars to sit undisturbed for 24 hours before removing the rings. This ensures that the seal is not hindered. After 24 hours, you can remove the ring (or leave it on).

These pro tips will make this recipe a success.

• When removing the seeds from the center of the peppers, use a wooden skewer. This will give you an easy, small tool to work with that will not puncture the side of the pepper. The tip of a knife can also be used, but it can easily pierce the side of the pepper, creating a hole that could leak cabbage.
• Make sure to keep the seeds that are removed from the center of the peppers. These seeds can be used to grow more seeds next year! Simply keep them on the pantry shelf until next year’s growing season. (See the FAQs later for where to buy the seeds.)
• When choosing jars in which to can, either a regular-mouth or wide-mouth jar will work. That said, a regular-mouth jar will help to contain the peppers in the brine because of the shoulder that’s built into the jar’s more narrow opening. The wide-mouth jars, on the other hand, will allow those with larger hands to place the stuffed peppers in the jar more accurately, but the peppers will tend to float up after they’re canned.

Make sure to try these other canning recipes as well.

• How to can pears
• How to can corn relish
• How to can hot pepper mustard
• Slow cooker pear butter
• Canned grape juice concentrate
• How to can tomato juice
• How to can homemade salsa
• How to can pickle relish
• How to can peaches

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