Skipping the Blanch

• Most vegetables benefit from being steamed or blanched in hot water before freezing. This step helps to inactivate enzymes that cause loss of quality, flavor and texture. But when you're preparing peppers for the freezer, you can skip the blanching process. Peppers frozen without blanching preserve more of their crispness because cooking softens the cell walls of the vegetable. When cooking peppers that have been frozen, the loss of texture is not as noticeable as when using frozen peppers raw, such as in a salad.

Tray Freezing Trick

• Tray freezing allows individual pepper pieces to freeze singly as opposed to clumping in large chunks. This makes it easier to measure out small amounts of peppers for use in recipes from the bag or container in the freezer. To tray freeze bell peppers, wash, core and seed the vegetables, cutting out the inner pepper membranes. Choose your cut based on how you plan to use your peppers. Whether the peppers are sliced into rings, diced or cut into strips doesn’t affect how crisp they'll be when they thaw. Tray freezing allows the pepper pieces to freeze faster than if they were clumped together, increasing the chances for crisp peppers.

Fast Freezing

• How fast a vegetable freezes affects its texture. Water frozen quickly produces smaller crystals, which causes less damage to the cell walls of the produce. To preserve maximum crispness, set your freezer to the coldest setting a few hours before freezing your peppers. Freeze no more than 2 to 3 pounds of fresh produce for each 1 cubic foot of freezer space in a 24-hour period. Choose moisture-resistant containers or zip-top style bags, and freezer tape designed to stay sticky even when cold. Use your frozen peppers as soon as possible to preserve maximum texture. When stored below zero degrees Fahrenheit, your peppers can stay fresh for up to 18 months.

Hot Pepper How To

• When preparing hot peppers for the freezer, simply wash, freeze and seal -- no chopping is necessary. Once hot peppers are cut open, the oil from the seeds causes burning to your skin. Wear gloves, and wash your hands with soap and water before touching your face and eyes after chopping hot peppers. Label your peppers as "sweet" or "hot," a and push out as much air as possible when using zip-top bags, to avoid freezer burn.