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Pepper

Twice the vitamin C when red

Per 100 g

31 kcal Energy

1 g Protein

6 g Carbs

0.3 g Fat

2.1 g Fibre

Gluten-free

Let’s cook with it → Invent something with it

What it is for

They bring water, fibre, acid and colour. Most are 80–95% water, and much of cooking them is really about managing that water.

Where it catches you out

Under a lid they cook in their own water; in a crowded pan they steam. If you want colour, give them room and take the lid off.

The knack

Sauté it before the tomato goes in: it can only sweeten while the pan is still dry.

Storage and health

How to keep it, and who it suits.

Keeping it

One to two weeks in a perforated bag in the salad drawer; wrinkling is water loss rather than spoilage.

Gluten-free

Fresh peppers are naturally gluten-free.

Glycaemic index

This ingredient carries no meaningful carbohydrate, so it has no glycaemic index. On its own it will not move blood sugar; what you eat alongside it decides that.

What it works with

Pairings, and the reason for each

"They go well together" is not an explanation. Every pairing below has a chemical or structural mechanism under it.

Tomato paste →

Both are glutamate-rich nightshades: their umami stacks and their acid profiles are compatible. That is the chemical basis of the ubiquitous paste-and-pepper foundation.

Egg →

Menemen works because the pepper’s water and acid moderate egg protein aggregation while its carotenoids dissolve into the yolk fat.

Also works with

Olive oil

Bulgur

Garlic

Aubergine

Red meat

White cheese

What goes on top

Roasted pepper paste bloomed in oil, olive oil, chilli flakes

Key compounds

2-izobütil-3-metoksipirazin: The unmistakable green-pepper smell, with one of the lowest odour thresholds known, around nanograms per litre. Roasting largely destroys it, which is exactly why roasted and raw peppers smell like different vegetables.

Nutritionally

Raw red pepper carries well over 100 mg of vitamin C per 100 g, more than citrus by weight. But ascorbic acid is heat- and oxygen-labile, so a raw pepper and a roasted one are nutritionally different foods.

Where it turns up

What is made with it

1 dishes in the database use it.

Preserving & fermentation 1

Tarhana

A winter store made by fermenting, drying and milling a dough of flour, yoghurt, vegetables and spices. One of the few doubly fermented cereal-dairy composites in the world: both lactic acid bacteria and yeasts are at work.

Uşak, Kastamonu, Kahramanmaraş

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