Professional chefs have two main priorities when it comes to vegetable prep. The first is to be fast, and the second is to keep waste to a minimum. With grocery bills being what they are, and most of us struggling to find enough hours in the day, those are sensible priorities for home cooks, too.…
How To Cut Bell Peppers
The best way to cut bell peppers starts with a simple step, though it’s not entirely obvious or intuitive. That step? Turn the bell pepper upside down. We don’t usually think of that because the stem keeps it from sitting upright on the cutting board. So, actually, the first step in this life-changing preparation method is to … cut off the stem.
With that done, here are the next steps:
1. Turn the bell pepper upside down on your cutting board. This way the broad top is on the bottom, so it’s nice and stable for cutting.
2. Place your knife’s tip at the top of the pepper.
3. Make a curving cut down one side of the pepper, following its natural contours with the blade and cutting as close to the core as possible. Here’s a helpful video tutorial for visual learners.
4. Repeat with the remaining sides.
By following the natural curve of the pepper, your knife will leave behind the membrane, the core, and the seeds clinging to it. Once you discard the core and seeds, you’re ready to slice or chop the neat, fleshy pepper pieces, and toss them into whatever recipe you’re working on.
How Else Can I Minimize Waste With Bell Peppers?
The upside-down method offers the best balance of speed and low waste, but there’s another hack you can try if you want to keep waste to an absolute minimum and don’t mind taking a little more time.
Locate the core in the middle of the pepper where the stem is. If you push hard on it with your thumb or the handle of the knife, it will pop right out. You can easily remove the core and then shake out any stray seeds. Now you have a perfectly hollow pepper, ready for slicing. You’ll still need to pull out the “ribs” of membrane as you go, but this technique yields the least amount of waste possible.
