What to do with habanero chiles

I have a bowl full of yellow habaneros, but my dehydrator is buried under mounds of stuff moved from the living room while we remodel, so I can't dry the chiles. Anyway, I have a bunch of them already dried from last year. Any suggestions as to what else can be done with them besides drying? Way too many to eat fresh!

Freeze them. That's what we do with our roasted Hatch bounty every year.

You could also puree them and then freeze and use in sauces later.

Or you could send them to me!

A variation on Cynthia's suggestion to puree them: Partly brown some onions in a skillet and puree them together with the Habaneros. This technique, adapted from some Indian cooking processes, I did several years ago with ferociously hot but delicious fresh Habaneros. The resulting paste was a little less intense and I froze it, and used it for months as a seasoning in things like Gulasch and Vindaloo dishes. These proved to be very popular. I also used just a little of it as a faint spicy note in a winter soubise (slow-braised onions, pureed and served as a soup course).

For milder uses like Gulasch, the straight pepper is a little too strong; diluted with pureed toasted onions it's still fiery hot (as I found out when I tasted it!) but more controllable. Also, the aroma in the blender bowl after pureeing the highly flavorful peppers and toasted onions together is indescribably worldly, subtle and savory.

Excellent idea, Max! Thanks for that.

What to i do with habanero chiles?

Mostly Robert, I avoid them. There are far too many peppers in this world for me to go to the trouble to find a way to eat them that does not cause me pain. I do love peppers, and I do cook with them, I even sprinkle dried red pepper flakes on my pizza, but I don't do the pain thing...not with peppers anyway.

Puree them into a paste with some cider vinegar and salt. Then smear said paste onto a corn tortilla and load it with shredded slow-cooked pork and slice radishes.

rwj

Now that sounds tasty!

I don't like to brag, but more than a decade ago I invented Habanero Eye Drops™ for eyes that burn. And they're guaranteed to work.