Chef Cameron Thomson has shared his ultimate tips to cut a bell pepper perfectly in seconds, without getting seeds all over your kitchen or wasting any of the edible parts of the vegetable
Bell peppers are a healthy and versatile vegetable that’s filled with vitamins, fibre, and antioxidants that can be eaten on their own or mixed into a meal. However, cutting up peppers can be a tricky task, given their hollow interior and irregular shape – not to mention the challenge of avoiding seeds in your meal.
To help home cooks cut their peppers more efficiently, renowned chef Cameron Thomson has revealed his top tips to dice a pepper without scattering seeds everywhere or wasting the good bits. The culinary expert, who boasts nearly three and a half million followers across TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube, demonstrated his fool-proof method for cutting a pepper on his social media platforms.
“One of the worst ways to dice a pepper is cutting straight through the core,” Chef Thomson warned at the beginning of his video, admitting that while it does work, it results in seeds scattered all over the place while also proving wasteful.
He went on to explain that this approach also makes it harder to remove the pepper’s pit, as the vegetable’s curved shape causes it to wobble as you attempt to slice it into segments.
“Don’t even get me started on those people that smash it into the cutting board,” he added. “Is that how you get out of your car? You just throw yourself onto the ground?”
While acknowledging that these techniques do work, he proceeded to demonstrate what he believes is the ‘better’ way to cut a pepper, a method he picked up from fellow chefs.
To do this, he began by slicing off the top and bottom sections of the pepper, leaving it so you could see through the hollow centre. He then proceeded to cut down one side of the pepper before rolling the pepper on his knife, which enables the core to come out with ease.
“Not a single seed falls onto the cutting board,” he observed, before continuing to demonstrate the rest of his technique.
He proceeded to cut the long rectangular piece of pepper in half before carefully removing the excess white parts from the core, before swiftly chopping it into sticks, before turning them around to dice it.
“Not only are you going to get more consistent slices, but you’ve just created a better and more uniform product, and have saved yourself time by being more efficient” Chef Thomson said.
As for the top and bottom sections that you cut off at the beginning, he proceeded to show that you can simply pop the green stalk out by pressing from the bottom. You can then continue to cut these pieces into the same shape as the rest of your pepper, minimising any food waste.
People soon flocked to the comment section of the video to share their thoughts, with many claiming this was already their preferred way of cutting a pepper.
One person said: ” This is the only way our chef wants us to cut peppers. Says it generates the least amount of waste. I don’t agree but I say ‘yes chef'”.
Someone else went on to say: “Lol i thought everyone did this.”
However, not everyone was in agreement with the chef’s advice, as another viewer penned: “Cut peppers any way you want.”