Sweet peppers (Capsicum annuum L.) are vegetable crops that possess varied aroma, color, flavor, nutritional and medicinal value (Melgar-Lalanne et al., 2017). In the last few years, sweet peppers gained the attention of researchers due to the presence of an ample amount of phytochemicals such as phenols, antioxidants, carotenoids, flavonoids, and fiber that impart neutraceutical properties. Thus, sweet pepper represents a source of beneficial compounds, which makes it a good antioxidant additive for food and increases its potential usability as a functional food (Hernández-Carrión et al., 2015). Moreover, sweet peppers have been recently reported to be effective in protecting against diabetes, cardiovascular and carcinogenic diseases because of their hypolipidemic, hypocholesterolemic, antithrombotic and anti-hypertensive effects. They also possess many other biological activities such as antimicrobial, antiasthmatic, antimutagenic, and immunomodulatory activities (Blanco-Ríos et al., 2013). Sweet peppers are strong-flavored vegetables used in a wide variety of ways, hence used as a coloring and flavoring agent in sweets, soft drinks, snacks, sauces, soups and other processed products (Giuffrida et al., 2013).However, sweet peppers are highly susceptible to microbial decay due to their high water content, therefore, need to be preserved.To enhance the shelf-life and extends the storage stability of sweet peppers various methods such as drying, evaporation, canning and freezing have been used. Drying is a widely employed method to enhance their shelf life by decreasing the moisture content which aids in microbial stability (Vincente et al., 2014). The hot-air drying is a commonly used drying technique relating to its low investment, minimum operating cost and simple process (Wang et al., 2017). Drying
