Are you growing a lush red chilli plant?
If you are, you have no doubt been delighted with the process of growing your own spicy, hot fruits.
Even more exciting is the next step – using your yummy home grown produce!
There’s a world of tastiness ahead with meals, drinks and snacks featuring your very own super hot pepper as the star of the show.
To inspire you to use your red chilli plant produce in your home cooking, here are 5 delicious recipes that make the most of your red chilli plant fruits:
1. Chilli Pepper & Tomato Pasta
This recipe creates a delicious spicy sauce that you can batch cook and freeze for use at a later date. It’s perfect for pasta, but can also be used with rice, as a base for stews and even watered down with stock and enjoyed as soup.
Serves 2
Ingredients:
- Two tins of plum or chopped tomatoes
- Crushed garlic cloves (to taste)
- One large finely chopped onion
- One vegetable stock cube
- One super hot pepper from your red chilli plant (finely chopped)
- Pinch of salt and pepper
- A TBSP of cooking oil & olive oil for drizzling
- Two servings of your pasta of choice
Method:
- Heat your cooking oil in a frying pan on a medium heat before adding your super hot pepper, onion and garlic.
- At the same time, boil your pasta as per the packet instructions, drain and cover when cooked.
- In your frying pan cook the ingredients until the onions are translucent. If the garlic begins to catch, add a little bit of water to the pan.
- Once the garlic, onions and super hot pepper have cooked down add the tinned tomatoes and crumble the stock cube in. Allow to cook down for at least ten minutes on a low to medium heat so the mixture is bubbling.
- After around 10-15 minutes the mixture should be thick and saucy. You can always add some water to thin it down. You can now season the sauce to taste with salt and pepper.
- Add the drained pasta to the frying pan and mix the pasta and sauce together.
- Serve up on a plate or bowl with a few splashes of olive oil.
- To jazz the dish up you can also sprinkle dried chilli flakes, cheese and fresh basil when serving.
2. Chilli Chocolate Avocado Mousse
This recipe is a fantastic option if you need a vegan, gluten free dessert for your family, or guests to enjoy. It’s also very easy to make, so it impresses without exhausting your cooking skills or free time.
Serves 4
Ingredients:
- Two medium avocados that are ripe (find out how to check the ripeness of avocados here) with the flesh scooped out
- ½ cup of dark vegan cocoa powder
- 3-4 TBSP soya milk or dairy free milk
- ½ TSP vanilla extract
- A pinch of salt
- ¼ cup vegan suitable liquid sweetener such as agave
- 1 super hot chilli chopped into thin slivers or slices if the pepper is thick. If it is thin and/ or small in size you can dry it whole.
Method:
- Preheat the oven to around 180 degrees
- Place the chilli from your red chilli plant on a non-stick oven sheet or tray and allow to dry in the oven for at least four hours. It makes sense to do this with a batch of multiple peppers to save energy. If you haven’t done this before, here’s a video to show you how to dry your red chilli plant
- Place one of your dried chillies chopped into small pieces into the blender along with all the other ingredients and blend in full until you can no longer see any green from the avocado.
- Place into ramekins or small bowls in the fridge and allow to set for a few hours (ideally overnight).
- Serve with one of your dried chillies on top (for display) and a few vegan chocolate chips or a square of dark vegan chocolate on top.
3. Spicy Sauerkraut
Sauerkraut is incredibly delicious, but Healthline tells us it is also incredibly nutritious too, so it’s a great recipe choice when it comes to making the most of your red chilli plant fruits.
Ingredients:
- One medium white or savoy cabbage roughly shredded
- 2 TBSP good-quality salt (IE not table salt)
- 1 large white onion roughly chopped and shredded
- 1 grated carrot
- 1 large super hot pepper from your red chilli plant finely chopped
- 1 TBSP mustard seeds
You will also need a sterile jar with a lid to put the sauerkraut in.
Method:
- In a bowl mix together the cabbage, carrot, chilli pepper, salt, onion and mustard seeds.
- Massage the mixture until the veggies soften and water is released into the bottom of the bowl.
- Put the veggies into your sterilised jar, squishing it down until all veggies are underneath the juices that have been released.
- Leave at least an inch of space at the top of the jar for expansion.
- Seal the jar with a lid and leave in a room/ cupboard without any extreme temperatures or direct sunlight.
- After a few weeks the fermentation process will be well underway and you can eat the sauerkraut. You will want to pop it in the fridge at this point, and eat it up within 4-6 months if you ensure it stays bacteria free (sealing the lid after use and using clean utensils to serve it).
4. Chilli Martini
For a little grown up fun, this chilli martini is a spicy, yummy twist on the traditional martini cocktail.
Serves 1
Ingredients:
- 1 super hot chilli from your red chilli plant striped of seeds
- 1 TBSP of sugar and water mix (in equal parts)
- 1 generous shot of vodka
- 2 shots of pineapple juice
- Half a cup of ice
Method:
- If you have a cocktail shaker, shake the chilli and sugar/ water mix together. If you don’t, mix them well together in a jar or glass.
- Add the vodka and pineapple juice to the chilli and sugar/ water mix.
- Mix everything together either stirring or shaking well for around half a minute.
- Strain or sieve the mixture into a nice glass, adding sugar to the wet rim of the glass if desired.
- Garnish with one of your chillis split and placed on the side of the glass.
5. Sun Dried Tomato Chilli Ketchup
This recipe is a great option if you want to stretch the use of your red chilli plant produce and enjoy their flavour time and time again.
Ingredients:
- 1 TBSP of any flavourless oil
- 1 super hot chilli from your red chilli plant, chopped
- 4 TBSP tomato purée
- 2 TBSP paprika
- ⅓ cup red wine vinegar
- ¼ cup brown sugar
- 1 TSP good quality salt
- 1 TSP black pepper
- 2 cups of ripe tomatoes
- Chopped garlic cloves (amount to taste)
- ½ TSP hot chilli powder
- A few sun dried tomatoes
Method:
- Heat the oil in a saucepan or deep frying pan on a medium heat.
- Cook the onion, garlic and chilli until the onion is translucent, then add the tomatoes, tomato purée, chilli powder, paprika, salt, pepper and cook until thick (about 15 minutes).
- Blend the tomato mixture with the sun dried tomatoes, vinegar and sugar and cook for 15 more minutes.
- Allow to cool, covered.
- Decant into a sterilised jar with a lid and place in the fridge.
- Use the ketchup within around 4 weeks.
What Will You Cook With Your Super Hot Chillies?
Hopefully our above recipes have you feeling incredibly inspired to make all kinds of yummy meals and drinks with your spicy fruits. Before long, you’ll wonder how you even ate before you grew your own red chilli plants!
Bon Appétit!