Why You Don't Need A Pan For Perfectly Charred Roasted Peppers

Roasted peppers are a wonderfully versatile ingredient, adding smokiness, texture, and unique flavor wherever they are put to use. They elevate the taste of various dishes, from instantly boosting canned tomato soup to upgrading store-bought pasta sauce for a much better-tasting spaghetti night. They're also a simple add-in to take omelets to the next level. While you can buy jarred roasted peppers, like so many things, they're much better when they're homemade (in this case, home-roasted). The good news is it's actually very simple to get perfectly charred roasted peppers in your own kitchen.

For guidance on the best way to roast peppers, Food Republic spoke with Kimberly L, former chef and current founder and owner of Fifth Fork kitchenware. She shared that all one needs to get a great roast on various types of peppers is a gas range. "The best no-pan method for charring peppers is using a burner on your gas stove if you have one," she explained. "This is by far the quickest and easiest method to char peppers at home. The results are amazing because you're getting direct flame touching the peppers."

Though peppers can also be home-roasted in other ways, such as in an oven or skillet, the best results are achieved over an open flame. "The texture is going to be much better and not as mushy as if you roast in a pan where [oftentimes] liquids are going to be released[,] and the pepper is going to sit in those liquids[,] which then makes the pepper soft and mushy," Kimberly explained. A flame-roasted pepper, on the other hand, yields a delightful mix of charred, smoky, caramelized flavor and a texture that is silky and tender.

Various types of peppers can be roasted over your burner. "I've had great success roasting all kinds of peppers this way: bell peppers, poblanos, basically anything," Kimberly L detailed. "The difficulty would come if you have a really tiny pepper like the bird's-eye chilies. Those will be very difficult[,] but if you have some metal tongs, you can still pull it off with these little peppers as well as the big ones."

To roast any pepper over your range's burner, turn on medium-high to high heat, depending on the size of the burner itself. You'll need the peppers to be touched by the flame, so they char. If you turn the grate over beforehand, it creates a bowl-like place where you can nestle in multiple peppers at once.

For large peppers, set them on the grate directly over the flame and rotate using tongs until the skin is evenly blackened. This can take anywhere from just a few minutes to up to 10 minutes. For tiny peppers, if they're too small to set directly on the grate, you'll need to manually hold them over the flame with the tongs.

Once the peppers are properly charred, you should immediately steam them, which helps loosen the blackened skins, so you can easily remove them; the peppers will also continue cooking from the inside. Steaming can be accomplished by simply wrapping the blackened peppers in a paper towel, or you can place them in a heat-safe dish and cover. After steaming for 20 to 30 minutes, the skins will remove easily. You should also remove the stem, seeds, and membrane, and then your peppers are ready for use! They can be stored in a refrigerator for a week or longer.