Bell peppers and jalapeños are real food kitchen staples — but if you’ve ever had seeds scatter across your entire cutting board, you know the frustration. In this quick kitchen tip, Krista shares her go-to technique for cutting both peppers cleanly, keeping seeds contained, and even controlling exactly how much heat your jalapeño brings to the dish.
What You’ll Need
- A chef’s knife
- A cutting board
How to Cut a Bell Pepper
Step 1: Cut off the top
Slice the top off the bell pepper. If the stem falls away cleanly, set the top piece aside — you’ll use it!
Step 2: Quarter around the core
Rather than cutting through the core (and releasing all the seeds), cut around it in large sections, curving your knife to follow the inside wall of the pepper. You’ll end up with clean pepper pieces and a core with all the seeds intact — simply discard the core.
Step 3: Slice or dice
From here, cut the pepper pieces into slices or dice them — whatever your recipe calls for.
Step 4: Don’t waste the top!
Dice up the pepper top the same way as the rest of the pepper. There’s plenty of usable pepper flesh there — no need to throw it away.
How to Cut a Jalapeño
Step 1: Remove the top and create a flat surface
Trim the stem end off the jalapeño. Then trim a thin slice off the opposite end too — this gives you a flat, stable base to work from.
Step 2: Stand it up and cut the sides off
Stand the jalapeño upright on its flat base and slice the four sides off, rotating as you go. You’ll be left with a rectangular core containing all the seeds — simply discard it.
Step 3: Control your heat level
- No heat: discard all seeds — the flesh on its own has very mild heat
- Gentle kick: add back half the seeds from the core to your dice
- Full heat: keep more seeds in — jalapeño heat lives in the seeds and white membranes
🌶️ Jalapeño Heat Tip
Most of the heat in a jalapeño comes from the seeds and the white inner membrane. By cutting around the core rather than through it, you have complete control over how spicy your dish turns out!
Video Transcript
“Now, bell peppers are actually enjoyable to cut once you figure out how to cut them without all the seeds flying all over. So this is how I like to cut a bell pepper. First I cut that top off and kind of make — if the stem falls out, just set it aside. And then I go around and kind of quarter it. So you’re going to cut it in large pieces, leaving the stem and everything intact, and you kind of curve your knife around so that you catch most of the bell pepper. Then you’re just going to discard that. And then from here you can slice or dice it up, just kind of depends on what you’re going to use it for. And so then obviously for the top, this is how I normally just kind of dice it up too. So this is super similar with the jalapeño. I take the top off. And then a lot of times just so you have a nice flat surface to work with, I’ll cut that little end off. Stand it up. And if you don’t want the seeds, same thing — just turn the jalapeño around as you cut all the sides off. And then you will have all your seeds intact. And a lot of times, same thing, dice it up how you want. A lot of times then I’ll just want a little bit of a kick, so I will add half the seeds from the middle. But that way you don’t have seeds flying all over the kitchen.”