Candied Jalapeños
Candied Jalapeños, also known as Cowboy Candy, are great on nachos, burgers, or anything you can imagine! Sweet with heat, and easy to can for later!
Every year we grow jalapeños in our garden just to use them for this recipe! My husband is addicted to all spicy things, so he eats these like potato chips! A while back Applebee’s used to have a spicy burger that had candied jalapeños, which is where my husband first tried them, and once he tried that burger, he was hooked and we’ve been making candied jalapeños ever since.
What are candied jalapeños? They are jalapeños that you slice and pickle like you would beets or other things – lots of sugar and some vinegar with spices. Some people even call these beauties Cowboy Candy. They’re sweet with lots of heat!
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My husband likes to eat these candied jalapeños on burgers, nachos, or over some cream cheese on a cracker! Really, you can put them on anything, if spicy is your thing. You are going to love them!
Candied Jalapeños
Ingredients
- 1 ½ lbs fresh jalapeños, washed, stems removed, and sliced (instructions below)
- 1 cup apple cider vinegar, (white vinegar works fine too)
- 3 cups granulated sugar
- ¼ tsp ground turmeric
- ¼ tsp celery seed
- 1 ½ tsp garlic powder
- ½ tsp ground cayenne pepper
Instructions
- *Be sure to wear gloves or wash your hands thoroughly after preparing the jalapeños; do NOT touch your face or eyes. Remove and discard jalapeño stems, scoop out and throw away any seeds, depending on your heat tolerance, then slice each pepper into uniform ⅛ to ¼ inch rounds. Set aside.
- In a large pot, bring cider vinegar, sugar, turmeric, celery seed, garlic powder, and cayenne to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 5 minutes. Add the pepper slices and simmer for 4 minutes. Use a slotted spoon to transfer the peppers into clean, sterile canning jars, packing the jalapeños semi-firmly within ¼-inch of the upper rim of the jar. Turn heat up under the pot with the syrup and bring to a full rolling boil. Boil hard for 6 minutes.
- Use a ladle to pour the boiling syrup into the jars over the jalapeño slices. Insert a plastic knife to the bottom of the jar two or three times to release any trapped pockets of air. Adjust the level of syrup if necessary. (*If you have leftover syrup, it’s a great marinade for meat! Don’t throw it out!) Wipe the rims of the jars with a clean, damp paper towel and fix on new, two-piece lids to finger tightness.
- If you do NOT want to can these to the point of shelf stable, simply cool jars at room temperature for an hour and then store them in your refrigerator.
- To can, place jars in a canner and cover with water by 2-inches. Bring the water to a full rolling boil. When it reaches a full rolling boil, set the timer for 10 minutes for half-pints or 15 minutes for pints. When the timer goes off, use canning tongs to transfer the jars to a cooling rack or kitchen towel. Leave them to cool, undisturbed, for 24 hours. When fully cooled, wipe them with a clean damp washcloth, double check that they’ve sealed properly, then label.
Notes
- Makes 4 half pint jars
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have red peppers gonna try your reciepe today. i even use these in my chili makes a great heat and sweet to my chili. thanks
I haven’t tried this with red peppers. You’ll have to let me know how they turned out!
How long do they have to “pickle” for? Thanks
Just follow the recipe as explained. The longer the flavors marry in the jar the better they get, but you can even eat them after they cool down.
Amber help my peppers are so hot, what did I do wrong they are not sweet like cowboy candy they have been in fridge 2 days!! Do you think it was my peppers! LOL and I doubled the recipe! I did pick huge, fat one!
Oh no! Shucks! The bigger the pepper, the more seeds it has. I’m sorry! I will edit my recipe to caution future readers to remove some seeds depending on their heat tolerance. You can try putting them back on the stove with some more sugar until it dissolves. Serving them with cream cheese on crackers should help with some of the heat as well. Sorry!
Not a problem, I thinking that too! I’m wondering if I drained them and put new liquid back in them! I knew I should have gotten the skinny ones LOL! I will let you know what happens! I’m not the best cook but I’m addicted to these I love them!
That sounds like it could work. I hope you get it figured out!
Amber…I have these cute jelly jars with red and white checkered lids, if I don’t can, can I use these jars and store in fridge like you explained, they have the twist on lids!
I was making these for Christmas baskets!
Hi Kaywin,
I’m actually pretty lazy when it comes to canning, so we just store ours in the fridge for a few months, but my husband usually eats them pretty fast! The jars you explained should work just fine! Enjoy!
They are absolutely delicious. Our jalapeños are red and they look beautiful in the bottles. Thank you for this recipe
Oh wow! I’ve never done them with red jalapeños! I bet they do look really pretty! Thanks for sharing!
I have reposted your recipe with the picture as th a t is how I found it on Pinterest . The recipe sounds wonderful . May I have your permission to leave this on my canning and preserving board ?
Hi Sandra,
The ingredients list automatically generates from the rich pin, but if you have the directions in the description, I would kindly ask you to remove that so pinners can come to my site for the full information. Thanks for double checking!
Oh wow, we are big fans of anything spicy so these sound perfect! Love that you used your garden jalapeños too – so so yummy 🙂
Oh I love these! Can’t wait till my kitchen renovation is done so I can finally bottle a few necessities like these! Pretty pictures!
~Laura
Thanks for your compliments Laura! Hope the kitchen renovation goes well!
I thought my jar was the first you had ever tried! So yummy 🙂
Wasn’t it Jalapeno Jelly or something like that? I’m not a jalapeno lover, but Kyle will eat all the jalapenos anywhere!
My husband also loves all things spicy. He puts sriracha and jalapenos on everything. These candied jalapenos look like something even I would enjoy! Yum!
Nice! I will eat these with the cream cheese topped crackers, but only a few, they are sweet, but the heat gets me! I’m a wimp!