by Eating Healthy with Chili Peppers: This series will walk through the advantage of adding chili peppers to your meals to kick up the taste and the heat while keeping the calories down.
Prior Post: Most Common Chili Peppers Found in Stores (from Mild to Insane Heat)
There are lots of chili peppers out there, and you can find them in your grocery store prepared in any number of ways. The produce section has them available fresh and dried, and along the aisles, you will find jars and cans with them pickled and brined. You will also find them roasted and smoked, and you may be wondering what is the best way to consume these chilis.
The answer to that is simple: All of the above!
The great thing about chili peppers is that there is a wide variety (the ones I covered in the previous post represents just a small sampling), and you can get them in all different forms—all of which are great in my opinion. They all add plenty of flavor and very few calories, and they bring a nice kick. But I will look at each in more detail to discuss what they are best for.
Fresh Chili Peppers
Is straight off the vine the best way to eat chili peppers? Give me a pepper plant, and I will pluck them and scarf them down like popcorn! But even if you don’t do that, eating chili peppers fresh is a great way to go. All the nutrients are still packed in the pods, and these guys deliver some good taste and nice heat.
Fresh chili peppers are great in salsas, or you can chop them up and sauté them with onions and other veggies and add them to soups, sauces, taco meat, and more. They bring a nice, fresh flavor, and oftentimes they are hottest when they are off the vine. And this is a great way to add taste and heat without much in the way of added calories, fat, or sodium.
I particularly like to use fresh chilis in salsas, and I will be sharing three basic recipes in the next post. Those salsas, in turn, can be used to bring plenty of flavor without packing on the calories.
Pickled Peppers
Peter Piper certainly kept busy with his pickled peppers, and he could be doing great business if he sold them in stores because you can find a large variety of those on the shelves. And they are plenty tasty, with a lot of them bringing some heat.
Pickled jalapenos are the best known of this variety, especially the sliced ones you find so often on nachos. But there are other pickled peppers as well as brined ones, and all of those bring their own enhancements to the flavor of the chilis. Often, they bring plenty of tang along with some pucker, and they can also be sweet or salty, depending on how they are prepared.
Note that when you pickle or brine a chili, you are going to lose some of the nutrients that are there in its fresh state. In addition, most of the pickled varieties are going to add salt to the mix, so that bumps up the sodium content. But the pickling or brining process does not typically add calories (unless oil is included), and if you use these peppers in a dish instead of salt, you may come out ahead.
Pay attention to the ingredients of these pickles because vinegar itself does not have any sodium. So if there is little to no added salt, you may be doing okay. Also, look for sugar and oil because those will increase the calories and make them less of a healthy option.
Roasted Chilis
If you have ever smelled chili peppers roasting, you know that it’s an intoxicating aroma that will instantly have you craving the charred pods on the grill. That process intensifies the flavors and adds some richness and smokiness, and the final product is a tasty and spicy reward.
You can roast them on the grill, in the oven, or even in the air fryer, and they will transform into soft and succulent peppers that have any number of uses. Plus, for chilis that have a tougher skin, like the poblano and the New Mexico chili, this is a great way to remove that without losing the delicious flesh from the chili.
And once they are roasted, you can add them to salsas, sauces, or soups, or you can stuff them with all sorts of delicious ingredients. And as a bonus, the roasting process adds no calories, though it will cook away some of the nutrients. Still, chilis prepared this way are a healthy and tasty way to add flavor to a dish, and you can learn more about how to roast chilis here.
Dried Chilis
Drying chilis is a way to preserve them, and the practice has been used for centuries, producing the colorful ristras that are common in the Southwest and into Mexico. Pretty much every chili pepper has its dried version, and that usually results in some notable changes to the flavor. A dried chili is typically rustic and earthy in taste, with some smokiness and maybe some hints of fruit or even chocolate.
The nice thing about dried chilis is that you can keep them for a long time in the pantry (preferably in an airtight container) and just pull them out when you need them. Typically, you will want to rehydrate them before adding them to a dish, but sometimes you can just throw them in as is.
Dried chilis are particularly good for sauces, soups, and stews. They can also be ground up and combined with other spices to make your own seasonings, and they can be used to infuse oils or broths with flavor. And they have little to no calories because most of that seeps away in the drying process.
Thus, with so many varieties of chili peppers and so many different preparation methods, the possibilities are as high as the heat of a Carolina Reaper on the Scoville Scale! Once you start adding these to your cooking, even if you are not looking to add a lot of heat, you will find that they really enhance the flavor, and they can prove quite addictive. And since they don’t add much in the way of calories, you get a tasty meal that can still be healthy!
Up Next: Three Quick and Easy Salsas
