Wingin’ It: Fried Green Peppers for Bills vs. Jets

Buffalo Rumblings regulars know the drill. But for the new Buffalo Bills fans circling the wagons with us, we’re about more than just football here. Need something exciting for this week’s game day chow line? Wingin’ It brings you a themed recipe for every regular-season and postseason Bills game. Like this one…

I played around with fried green tomatoes this summer and, yes, they’re fantastic. Come November though, apparently grocery stores up here stop stocking green tomatoes (and ripe tomatoes will turn to mush if you try). So in true Wingin’ It fashion I had to call an audible and rolled with green peppers and some squash. If you have or find green tomatoes, I’d recommend going with that.

Wait Skare? Are you confused? Fried green tomatoes are a Southern thing and the Bills are playing the Jets. Don’t trust Hollywood. In the United States, fried green tomatoes first appeared in recipes published in the Northeast, likely coming along with Jewish immigrants. So feel free to serve these with grits or catfish if you want, but don’t rule out pairing with brisket and latkes. This also works well this week because we’ll be frying the green, like we hope Buffalo does.

Fried green peppers

Serves: 2-4
Active Time: 40 min
Total Time: 1 hour

Ingredients

2 large bell peppers
Salt
Black Pepper
Garlic Powder
1 cup flour
2 large eggs
6 Tbsp hot sauce
1 ¹⁄₂ cups crushed crackers
¹⁄₄ cup grated Parmesan cheese
Vegetable oil for frying

You’ll need: Paper towels, plenty of clean space to work on, high-walled frying pan, several small dishes for dredging

1. Slice peppers into either thin straws or rings. (Straws are easier, see below.)
2. Lay sliced peppers out on a long, clean surface and sprinkle with salt, pepper, and garlic powder; set aside.
3. Pour flour into shallow dish for dredging. (Optional: Add black pepper and garlic powder to flour.)
4. Whisk eggs and hot sauce together in another shallow dish.
5. Mix cracker crumbs and Parmesan cheese together into a third dish.
6. Add about 1/4-inch of oil to fry pan; preheat on HIGH.
7. Dredge peppers in flour, then egg/hot sauce, then cracker crumbs.
8. Carefully add dredged peppers in batches to pan and fry until medium brown, flipping once; about 4 min.
9. Remove peppers from oil (also carefully and with a utensil made for it) and place on paper towel to blot out excess oil. Repeat until all peppers are fried. Serve with your choice of dips and extras.

Wingin’ It Tips and Prep Gallery

Making pepper rings is definitely gives a more classic look and comes out basically the same as straws. However, you’re likely going to be cooking in batches as it is. With peppers, rings are fairly large and uniform size. This is also a shallow fat-fry recipe, so you can’t have food overlapping or they’ll stick together. The short version is that rings take up a ton of space in the pan and you’ll be repeating for a lot of batches.

As noted, I also did this with some squash, which was also amazing. And yes, you can make onion rings this way too. I think many veggies would work, but there are a couple I’d steer clear of like ripe tomatoes and eggplant. Note that not all surfaces of all veggies will coat well. This isn’t an issue unless you’re hyper-focused on aesthetic (you can see some green pepper skin in my pics).

The only tip picture I have for this recipe is the first in the two-picture gallery. This is a recipe that can cramp a kitchen quickly and we have raw flour and egg being actively worked with, which you don’t want. A little planning goes a long way.

For my setup, the uncooked veggies are to the front of the counter. The dredging stations are behind the veggies. It’s not pictured, but my paper towels for finished food is to the right and slightly behind. If I accidentally drop an item into the egg, or kick up a puff of raw flour, there should be little risk of anything contaminating cooked food.

From left to right, my dredging stations are the crackers, egg/hot sauce, and flour. That’s the reverse order from which you use them. Or in other words, once I start messing with the raw stuff, I’m always working away from where I’ll place the finished food AND I’m working toward the pan.

You may have noticed that there are two egg-dredging stations. One is the hot sauce version you see above. The other replaces the hot sauce with water in case someone is leery of spicy foods. These are pretty mild overall, but this gives you options.

Finally, with the flour mixture, I don’t have good measurements for the garlic powder and pepper, but what I do is add enough to create a top coat over the spread-out flour. I mix it in, then I do another top coat of spices and then mix that in as well.