Our cayenne peppers are quite abundant right now in the garden, so it feels like I’m making something with them nearly every day. One of our favorite ways to save our cayennes to use throughout the year is by drying them out and making chili flakes! They’re much spicier than any you’d buy in the store, and we usually have plenty leftover to give as gifts.
First, get all of your cayennes together and make sure you have some rubber gloves to use while handling these hot peppers. Too many times I’ve rubbed my eyes after handling these peppers without gloves and felt like my eyes would never stop tearing.
Cut the tops off.
Actually, cut a LOT of tops off if you have plenty. Line up your beheaded cayennes on an ungreased non-stick baking sheet and bake at 250 F for about 3-3.5 hours until they’re dried, dark red, and smelling up your house with a spicy, caramelly pepper smell.
You can bag them whole at this stage if you want, or to make chili flakes, put them through a food processor.
You will probably sneeze and cough like crazy with all of the pepper residue flying around. You can protect your mouth and nose with a wet cloth and it’ll help reduce the feeling of being hit in the face with some pepper spray.
I put mine in little glass Kerr jars to store or give away! It’s super easy and doesn’t take too much work for over a year’s supply of chili flakes. The spice will gradually fade a bit from the flakes, but we found our last year’s supply to still have quite a lot of fire to it when we used the last of the flakes this past week.
