Dry your own (tears) peppers

Homemade chili flakes? Don’t mind if we do. It’s incredibly simple to dry your own peppers - all you need is a needle, thread, and some sun. Careful not to rub your eyes or touch your face.

To dry, simply string the thread through the stem of the pepper, hang up with enough space for each of the peppers to breathe, and and let the sun get to work. Once they’re dry, you can crush them up to make chili flakes, or put the whole pepper into your upcoming stir-fry for maximum spice.

You can also add your dried peppers to a jar of oil to infuse the oil with the peppers, and to soften the peppers for all sorts of applications later on, as you often see with a sun-dried tomato. Don’t have time to wait for the peppers to dry? These peppers are equally great when preserved after roasting.