Learn how to cut jalapeños — in slices, chopped or diced, and for poppers — in this step-by-step tutorial with photos and a short video. You’ll also learn how to seed a jalapeño, cut one without gloves, and how to clean your hands afterwards.

jalapeño halves, slices, and diced pieces on a cutting board

Jalapeños are a great addition to recipes. They add some heat, a pop of color, and a little extra veggie goodness. If you’re interested in using more of these green peppers in your cooking, keep reading to learn all of my tips and tricks for how to cut jalapeños!

Jump to:

Cutting Jalapeños With or Without Gloves
How to Slice Jalapeños
How to Prepare Jalapeños for Poppers
How to Chop (or Dice) Jalapeños
Can you eat jalapeño seeds?
How to Get Jalapeño Off Your Hands
Jalapeño Recipes
Video
📖 Recipe
💬 Comments

Cutting Jalapeños With or Without Gloves

First things first, you need to decide if you want to wear gloves while you cut jalapeños. When you slice into a jalapeño, the compound that makes it spicy (capsaicin) gets released and can cause a burning sensation in your fingers and hands. In my experience, it’s difficult to get off and can last for a few hours.

If you want to avoid this unpleasant side effect, wear gloves when cutting jalapeños. Alternatively, you can hold the jalapeño with a damp paper towel while you prepare it. I use a paper towel and don’t put on gloves, because I usually don’t have those on hand. If you end up cutting a jalapeño without gloves or a paper towel, I have some tips for getting it off your hands later in the post.

How to Slice Jalapeños

To cut a jalapeño into slices, such as for a topping for chili or nachos, start by trimming off the stem.

woman trimming off the stem of a jalapeño pepper on a cutting board

Next, deseed the jalapeño without cutting it. Use a paring knife to cut out the core of the pepper made up of the membrane and seeds. If needed, use a spoon to scoop out any remaining seeds.

woman removing the seeds and membranes of a jalapeño pepper with a paring knife

Cut the pepper crosswise into slices of your desired size.

woman slicing a jalapeño into slices on a cutting board

How to Prepare Jalapeños for Poppers

If you’re making jalapeño poppers, you’ll want to keep the stems on the peppers. Slice the peppers in half lengthwise.

woman slicing a jalapeño pepper in half lengthwise for poppers

Then, use a paring knife to remove the seeds and membrane. Now, your peppers are ready to be stuffed to make poppers!

woman removing the seeds and membrane of a jalapeño with a paring knife

How to Chop (or Dice) Jalapeños

If you want to chop or dice jalapeños into small pieces, trim off the stem, cut them in half lengthwise, and remove the seeds and membrane. These steps are shown in the above sections. Then, cut each half lengthwise into thin strips.

woman cutting a pepper into thin strips before dicing it

Cut the strips crosswise into diced pieces.

woman dicing a jalapeño into small pieces on a cutting board

Can you eat jalapeño seeds?

Jalapeño seeds are edible and some people like to leave them when preparing recipes. As you can see, I prefer to remove the seeds and membranes from jalapeños when preparing them. You should remove them if a recipe calls for a seeded jalapeño (or a deseeded one, they mean the same thing!), but it depends on your preferences.

You may want to remove jalapeño seeds to tame the heat in a recipe or for texture reasons. Interestingly, the seeds are not actually the spicy culprits that many people believe they are. The membrane of a jalapeño tends to be the spiciest part, and since you remove the seeds with that, it’s often thought that the seeds are extra spicy as well. So if you want a spicier dish, keep the membranes (and probably the seeds as a result).

How to Get Jalapeño Off Your Hands

If your hands have a burning sensation from cutting jalapeños, I have a good hack for you! Put a drop of olive oil on each hand, then rub them together for about 30 seconds. Leave the olive oil on your hands for at least a minute. Then, wash your hands with soap and water. This should remove most of the burning sensation, since capsaicin is fat-soluble and will be absorbed into the oil!

Jalapeño Recipes

Now that you know how to cut jalapeños, let’s talk about cooking with them! Here are my favorite recipes that feature these green peppers. If you have too many on hand, check out my post on How to Freeze Jalapeños.

Video

I’d love to hear how you like this recipe! Rate/review using the stars on the recipe card or in the comments, and follow the Veg World on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest. Looking for something totally different? Browse the recipe library.

📖 Recipe