Food & Recipes, Kitchen Hacks
How to deseed and chop a jalapeño
If you love cooking, then technique matters: the right way to prepare jalapeños for your recipe.
One of the things I’ve learned about home cooking: you don’t have to actually be a chef to cook excellent meals. But, I have so many chef friends that I have cooked with that I’ve been able pick up a trick or two. One of the most important culinary techniques I have learned from them is that the little things really count. “Details detail details!” as a chef-friend often says in her kitchen. And some details are easy to miss, but once you see it, you’ll never forget.
For instance, deseeding and chopping jalapeño peppers. Sounds simple enough, right? Maybe you just thought that if a recipe calls for jalapeño peppers that it was going to be spicy. So, you washed them and cut them like anyone else. Perhaps that’s okay for a Super Bowl party dip, but let’s say you found a recipe that calls for jalapeños and you want to include the dish in a nice dinner for a special friend, or a special occasion?
Here’s the deal. Most of the time, when a recipe calls for jalapeño, the taste you want is from the pepper itself, not the heat that you often think of. The flavor of a jalapeño is surprisingly subtle, maybe a bit tart, not at all hot. The famed spiciness or heat actually comes from the ‘capsaicin’ that’s contained in jalapeño seeds and the white material that surrounds them.
For that reason, deseeding and chopping a jalapeño pepper the right way can be very important. All we want to do is keep those little seeds and the white stuff around them from joining our mix and changing the flavor of our meal.
My video gives you a very detailed demonstration of how this works:
- First things first, pick your peppers the way you choose fruit (freshness, firmness, aroma). Then select for size and color depending on your recipe.
- Bring your peppers home and then wash them (common sense step), and damp dry.
- Use a sharp knife (essential). In my video, I use my santoku. Cut and turn just the sides off. Cut each side, one at a time.
- You’ll have the stem core, with the seeds intact. They’re okay to eat, but they’re spicy. Some recipes may call for adding them.
- Remove the ‘ribs’ or any white parts left over from the core. Just lay your knife sideways on top of the pepper and slide across to trim off.
- It’s easier to cut into strips if the skin side is facing the cutting board instead of facing up.
- Then cut each section into ‘julienne’ or thin strips (skin side down).
- Gather the julienne strips together and then cut across to create cubes if you want.
As I said, it’s so easy. Now even your jalapeño game day dip will taste that much better. Happy cooking!
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