How to Cut a Bell Pepper

The bell pepper is an oddly shaped fruit (yes fruit, even if we eat it like a vegetable). It has three or four lobes, each demarcated by a vertical indentation on the outside and a rib of white pith on the inside. And its tight cluster of seeds can quickly become a mess if you go about cutting into the pepper in the wrong way. Simply put, it's not always obvious how to cut a pepper efficiently, uniformly, and with minimal mess and waste. The two methods explained below accomplish both.

Bell Pepper Cutting Method 1: The Round-Robin

"Round-robin" is not the official name of this method, I just made it up, but it gets at the idea: To trim the pepper, you're going to cut its walls off in one even sheet after first trimming off the top and bottom. The advantages of this method are that you get a very uniform, roughly rectangular sheet from each pepper; with minimal trimming, you can even it up even more for the best precision cuts. It's also one of the easiest ways, in my experience, of avoiding the seed cluster and minimizing mess. The downside is that you end up with circular and ring-shaped trimmings from the top and bottom of the pepper that are not easy to cut uniformly. They won't go to waste if you just snack on the, or cut them up and accept the less uniform pieces, but it is something you'll have to deal with.

This is the method I use when precision is required, such as for perfect dice, julienne, and brunoise. That said, at home I usually don't require this precision and often opt for the other method below, which minimizes waste.

Round-Robin Step 1: Trim Off the Top and Bottom

Using a sharp knife, trim off the top and bottom of each pepper. At the top, you want to do this just where the stem meets the flesh. This cut should remove the stem right where it meets with the seed cluster inside the pepper and will yield a ring-shaped piece of scrap pepper. Then trim off the bottom of the pepper, which will yield a round cup-shaped piece. Eat the scraps or use them in your recipe, but note that uniform cuts like sticks, dice, julienne, and brunoise will not be easy to get out of them, if that matters to you.

Round-Robin Step 2: Cut Off Wall of Pepper Flesh

Turn the pepper so its stem end is farthest from you and the bottom is closest. With your knife, cut vertically into the flesh, splitting the pepper open from head to tail. Now slide the knife inside the pepper and run it round the interior, separating the pepper from the ribs of white pith. This will detach the seed cluster from the flesh in one piece, almost always with no mess.

You now have a nicely uniform sheet of bell pepper to cut as desired. For the most perfect cuts, you can trim the sheet into a totally even rectangles with minimal pepper waste. And if you want four-star restaurant–level precision, you can further trim each rectangle of pepper by laying it flat and flesh-side up, then running a very sharp knife across the surface to level off the interior of the pepper and remove and last remnant of white pith. This is super fussy and cheffy and almost never something I would do at home, but the option exists.

Bell Pepper Cutting Method 2: The De-Lobe-er

Once again, not an official name, so you probably don't want to casually sling it around with the assumption anyone will know what you're talking about. The idea here is to follow the natural lobes of the pepper and cut each off vertically. When you're done you'll end up with three or four nice lobes of pepper with very little white pith and waste (and usually little or no seed mess unless your knife cuts too close to the center), which are the main advantages. The disadvantage is each lobe is less uniform in shape, with the pepper's natural curvature built into each piece. That's fine for most home needs—you can still make perfectly fine pepper sticks and dice, but fine knife work like brunoise and julienne will require more trimming and waste to get the pepper to cooperate with you.

De-Lobe-er Step 1 (the One and Only Step): Remove Lobes

Sit the pepper upright on the cutting board. Visually identify the lobes, then, using a sharp knife, cut down from top to bottom to remove each lobe in a single piece. You may need to angle the knife slightly out and then back in to avoid hitting the seeds inside.

When you're done, you should have each lobe plus the remnants of the pepper still all in one piece: the seed core, stem, and white pithy ribs connecting it all to the base.

How to Slice a Bell Pepper

Whichever method you've used to remove the pepper flesh, you can now cut it into strips of whatever width you desire. Strips cut from a de-lobed pepper will curve at the ends, while strips cut from a round-robin-style sheet of pepper flesh will be perfectly rectangular.

People debate whether it's better to slice (and subsequently dice) a bell pepper skin side up or down. Our experience is that flesh up (skin down) is easier—the knife is less likely to "slip" on the skin, which sometimes happens with anything but the very sharpest of knives. When flesh side up, you will still need a sharp knife to cut down through the skin below, but the knife is less likely to slip at that point since it's buried in the flesh, which is safer.

How to Dice a Bell Pepper

Dicing is as simple as cross-cutting strips to make squares. To keep your dice even, try to space your cuts evenly, so if you've cut your peppers into 1/4-inch strips, you should then try to cross-cut them into 1/4-inch dice. Very thin strips of julienne can be cut into tiny brunoise.

Shopping and Storage

As with most produce, you've got to pick up and feel the peppers in the shop to pick the best ones. Things to look for:

• Smooth, firm skin. Avoid any peppers with wrinkles or soft spots. Occasionally, you'll find a pepper that has coarse, raised brown ridges (green peppers and jalapeños seem particularly prone to this). This is purely a cosmetic problem, and will not affect the flavor of the pepper.
• Bright color, especially around the stem area. Common sense, but red peppers should be red, yellow peppers should be yellow, purple peppers should be purple. If there is still green showing around the stem area, then the pepper is not fully ripe (green bell peppers, if you didn't know, are simply under-ripe red, yellow, orange, or purple peppers). Look for more evenly colored ones.
• Choose peppers that feel heavy for their size. Peppers that seem lightweight may be immature or may have lost too much moisture during storage.

Peppers can be stored in a plastic bag, left partially open, in the vegetable crisper drawer of the fridge. Do not completely seal them in an airtight bag, as this will trap too much moisture and encourage mold. Properly stored, a pepper should last at least five days to a week.