How to Make Chipotle Peppers
Smoked chipotles are super easy to make and they add incredible flavor and richness to your Mexican dishes!
Equipment
- Pecan wood chips (traditional but can substitute apple or cherry)
Ingredients
- fresh ripe red jalapeños (see Note), washed; select firm peppers without blemishes, as uniform in size as possible
Instructions
- Preheat your smoker to 160-180 F / 71-82 C. You can go a little lower but don't go higher. Wearing gloves is strongly recommended when handling hot peppers. Take a sharp knife and slice down one side of each pepper lengthwise. This is to enable the smoke to fully penetrate the chili and, if you're using them to make your own chipotle peppers in adobo sauce, the slit will help the sauce get inside. Removing the stems is optional. They're typically left intact. Place the jalapeno peppers on the racks in your smoker and add the wood chips (they do not need to be pre-soaked). Smoke them for roughly 6-8 hours, depending on the ambient temperature. If you like them extra smoky you can add another handful of chips an hour or two into smoking.The chipotles are done when they are leathery but not moist and mushy. There should be some resistance when you try and bend them but they shouldn't be so dry that they snap in two.
- In order to store your smoked chipotle peppers without them developing mold they will need to be sufficiently dried. If they need to dry longer you can do this by reducing the heat of your smoker to between 125-140 degrees F and continuing to dry them, transferring them to a food dehydrator set to the same temperature, or placing them on a wire rack on a baking sheet in your oven turned to the lowest temperature (if it doesn't go lower than 170, prop the door open a crack). Allow your homemade chipotles to fully cool before transferring them to an airtight container or ziplock bag for storage. You can also grind them to a powder and then store the powder in an airtight jar.
Notes
If you don't have access to ripe red jalapenos you can place green jalapeno peppers in a single layer next to a sunny window in a warm room, turning them over occasionally, and wait a few days for them to turn red.
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