Spicy Pickled Pepper Mix with Celery and Carrots | Homemade Winter Preserve

A crisp, colorful winter preserve made with spicy peppers, carrots, and celery. Easy homemade vinegar brine, long shelf life, and perfect flavor for soups, sauces, and traditional meals. Ideal recipe for spicy pickled peppers and winter pantry staples.

Why This Recipe Works

Let’s be honest: winter jars can be hit or miss. Some turn mushy, some too sour, some… well, better forgotten. But this one? This is my no-fail, I make it every single year kind of jar. A crunchy, fiery, colorful mix that tastes like you actually planned ahead (even if you threw it together last minute because the peppers at the market looked too good to leave behind).

It’s the perfect mix of spicy peppers, sweet carrots, and fragrant celery leaves — all swimming in a bright vinegar brine that keeps everything crisp for months. No preservatives, no complicated steps, just old-school preserving with a seasonal twist. Google loves it because it hits classic searches like “spicy pickled peppers,” “vegetable winter mix,” “vinegar brine recipe,” and people love it because… well, it’s delicious and makes you look extremely put-together.

Now let’s jar some chaos in a very organized way.

Ingredients (my exact batch)

  • 3 kg mixed peppers:
    • 1 kg small hot peppers (red + green)
    • 1 kg mild hot peppers (red)
    • 1 kg Bulgarian peppers (carnous, mild)
  • 1 kg celery — root, stems, and leaves
  • 2 kg carrots

For the brine (for every 1 L water):

  • 1 L water
  • 500 ml vinegar (9%)
  • 1 heaping tablespoon coarse non-iodized salt

Increase brine quantities proportionally depending on how many jars you fill.

🥕 Prep the Vegetables

Let’s be honest: some parts of this recipe are soothing… and some are pure chaos. So here’s how I do it… just start with what doesn’t burn your skin.

1. Start with the easy vegetables

I always begin with carrots and celery — the peaceful stage.

  • Grate the carrots and the celery root.
  • Chop the celery stems and the fragrant leaves.
  • Toss everything into a huge bowl (and I mean huge — these veggies are surprisingly bulky when chopped).

If you don’t own a gigantic bowl, don’t panic. A clean bucket, a stockpot, or any oversized container works. This mix expands, so give yourself space.

2. Now… the peppers. Respect them.

This is the part where experience has taught me one unbreakable rule:

Wear gloves. Seriously.
Not optional, not negotiable, not “I’ll be fine”. Once, I skipped the gloves and spent a whole night awake with burning hands because I underestimated how spicy those little peppers were. Never again.

  • Chop all the peppers (hot, mild, small, big).
  • My husband is deeply anti-seed in jars, so I try to remove as many seeds as humanly possible while chopping. It’s delicate work, but the final jar looks beautifully clean.
  • If you don’t care about seeds, leave them in — they settle at the bottom of the jar over time and don’t ruin anything.

When all the peppers are finally chopped (and your gloves have saved your skin), add them to the bowl of carrots and celery and mix everything together. At this point, your kitchen looks like a rainbow exploded — in a good way. And yes, your whole kitchen will smell spicy. Not just “pepper aroma,” but that sharp, tingly heat you can literally feel in the air. You’ll know exactly what I mean when you get there — trust me 🙂

🫙 Sterilize Your Jars

Don’t skip this. Sterilizing is what keeps your jars from turning into a science experiment.

Now — full honesty: you can skip sterilizing on your own responsibility. I’m not guaranteeing anything if you do. My mother-in-law, for example, never sterilizes jars for pickles. Her logic? The vinegar disinfects everything anyway, and traditional pickles (even the ones made only with salt) rely on fermentation, not sterile conditions.

So… theoretically it works. Practically? Mno… you can try.
I still sterilize, because it takes 10 minutes and removes all the anxiety.

  • Wash jars and lids thoroughly.
  • Sterilize: either 10 minutes in the oven or 5 minutes boiled.
  • Let them dry completely — moisture is the enemy here.

Once your jars are ready, you’ll feel like an absolute pro.

Two glass jars filled with a colorful mix of spicy peppers, carrots, and celery in vinegar brine, ready for winter preserving.

🍶 Make the Brine

For this batch, I made a big pot of brine:

  • 2 L water
  • 1 L vinegar (9%)
  • 3 heaping tablespoons coarse non‑iodized salt

It was the perfect amount for all the jars. If I had needed more, I would’ve just made another quick round — no stress.

The truth is, you can estimate the brine amount easily: once your jars are filled with vegetables, roughly 50% of the jar will end up being liquid, so you can eyeball how much brine you’ll need.

To prepare the brine:

  1. Add water, vinegar, and salt to a large pot.
  2. Bring to a gentle boil — one soft bubble is enough.
  3. Make sure the salt has fully dissolved.

Simple, classic, reliable.

🫙 Assemble the Jars

Now we turn vegetables into a winter treasure.

  • Fill your jars with the chopped veggie mix. Don’t squish them too much — they need space to soak properly.
  • Pour the hot brine over the top until it reaches the rim. Place your jars on a metal tray before pouring — it absorbs the thermal shock and dramatically reduces the risk of cracking.
  • Seal immediately.
  • Flip the jars upside down — the vacuum trick that generations swear by.
  • Leave them overnight to cool completely.

This step always feels like tucking your jars into bed for a very long nap.

❄️ Storage

Store in a cool pantry. These jars last easily through winter and often well into the next year. The vegetables stay bright, crisp, and happily floating in their brine like they’ve been frozen in time.

🍲 How to Use

This mix is the definition of small jar, big impact.

Use it:

  • As a spicy side for traditional meals
  • Chopped into salads for instant personality
  • In soups and sauces (the liquid alone upgrades everything)
  • On sandwiches for a fresh, crunchy kick
  • Anytime your plate needs a little heat and color

💡 Lela’s Tips

  • Extra hot peppers? Remove seeds from part of the batch for a balanced mix.
  • Don’t skimp on celery leaves — they’re the entire flavor department.
  • No sugar, no artificial anything. This is old-school preserving at its best.
  • If you’re new to pickling, this is a great “starter jar” — forgiving, stable, and impressively delicious.

🔗 More From the Seasonal Kitchen

If this spicy jar found a place in your pantry (and your heart), here are a few more seasonal staples you might love — all cozy, practical, and rooted in the same homemade tradition:

Each recipe fits beautifully into a slower, seasonal way of living — and they all make your pantry feel like a tiny apothecary of comfort.

💌 The Seasonal Newsletter

If you enjoy cozy homemade jars, seasonal recipes, and honest stories from the kitchen, you’ll love my monthly newsletter. It’s where I share:

  • new recipes and preserves
  • seasonal produce tips
  • little wins, slow living notes, and Lela chaos (the organized version)

Subscribe and make your inbox a calmer, more delicious place.

🎁 Explore My Life Kits

For printables, pantry helpers, recipe cards, seasonal planners, and tiny tools that make life simpler, explore my Life Kits — created to bring order, ease, and a bit of joy into every season.

🍒 Live simply. Eat seasonally. Thrive naturally. #SimplifyWithLela 🍒