Roasted bell peppers can be a fantastic accompaniment to many dishes. The best part, they are ridiculously easy to make and only take about 20 minutes of work. I mostly roast red bell peppers, though the color doesn’t matter. Yellow, orange and green peppers are prepared the same way. Red bell peppers are sweet, so are the yellow and orange. Green peppers are not, and I use them when I don’t want sweetness in a dish. There are several ways to roast bell peppers, but my favorite one, by far, is to roast them in the oven under broiler. You don’t need to preheat the oven. Simply line a baking sheet with aluminum foil, place the peppers on the baking sheet and put them on the top rack. Roasting takes about 10-12 minutes, turning the peppers 1/4 way every 3-4 minutes or so.
Roasted bell peppers can be peeled immediately after roasting, but that’s a bad idea. They will be too hot to handle. They will also taste better if you wrap them in foil or place in a Ziploc bag for about 20 minutes and let them continue cooking and softening up.
After 20 minutes or more of rest, peeling will be a breeze.
The dressing or the marinade is what really makes or breaks the roasted bell peppers. Store-bought roasted peppers often are either too sweet or have an unpleasant aftertaste. When making them at home you have full control over taste. That’s why for me homemade roasted bell peppers are always the best. My marinade consists of high quality extra virgin olive oil, balsamic and white vinegar mix, salt and pepper. These are very basic ingredients but they work really well together. I like mixing balsamic and white vinegar to balance sweetness and acidity. When using one or the other exclusively, I find the marinade tastes either too sweet or too vinegary and acidic. Of course, that also depends on what balsamic vinegar is used – there are so many different kinds of them out there. Which make tasting the marinade before using it on peppers a very good idea.
