What is everyone's experience with shishito peppers? I have been told that, historically, with shishito peppers that around 1 in 10 will be hot. Is this your experience? I've had multiple colleagues, and read many discussions on these forums, that complain that all the shishito peppers they grow are hot (or not hot).
Does anyone have seeds for a variety that actually has variable heat levels? I want to go back to an old variety that retains this heat-variability trait. Anyone able to help?
by RespectTheTree
14 Comments
For one, they are delicious. I love cooking them in the oven and eat them a bit in some garlic and lemon juice. As for the heat yeah pretty much 1-10 are “hot” but only something like 500 scoville or so. Noticeable, but not even close to even a jalapeno.
I grow these and those are the results I get. It’s not like 1 out of 10 plants are hot. Heck even on a jalapeno plant some will be hotter than others. Weather, water, sun, nutrition varies throughout the season and so do the peppers that grow
I got them from Baker Creek Rare Seeds. It’s a great site for ALL kinds of veggies and things. They don’t have as big of a selection as dedicated pepper seed stores, but have plenty of unique ones. One of my favorite places to look
https://www.rareseeds.com
I think it’s much more rare than 1 in 10. I think we’ve had one hot one out of our batches this year and we’ve probably eaten almost 100 of them. Our plants are going nuts though and producing peppers like crazy.
Mine are more like 50% spicy . Our theory is if the come to a point they are spicy, if the tip is rounded they are not
I have 2 plants and am harvesting them twice a week. Very prolific variety of peppers, that for sure.
I used to have 15 shishito plans. Yes, I am crazy. I would say the 1 in 10 thing is fairly accurate.
The last plant I grew, almost all of the peppers were spicy and some peppers were quite spicy. I am growing another and 0 out of 10 are spicy.
It almost makes me wonder if the last plant was an accidental hybrid, but I’ve grown a lot of shishitos and everything looked and tasted the same. Just the heat level was very different. 🤷♂️
Shishitos are my favorite pepper. Eat them on anything. I rarely find one with much heat
I grew some last year, and had a couple plants do really well. From the same plant on the same branch, two peppers right next to each other would have a wildly different spice range… either not hot at all or surprisingly spicy (like a hot jalapeño or cayenne kinda heat).
But with stir fry, roasting, crockpots, pizza toppings, etc. – all diced up and mixed together they had a great flavor overall and spread any surprise heat throughout the dish.
Love Shishitos!
I made TJ’s whipped cream-cheese and prosciutto poppers with my Shishito harvest at the weekend. Nice salt/fats from the ham, a little dairy to cool the hot two out ten that I had. They were *ace*.
They look great! I bought mine at Lowe’s , and it’s exploding with shishitos! Only one plant, but every time I pick , it’s at least 10 peppers. It seems like it’s a good year to have a shishito. Enjoy!
Not sure what went wrong with mine but I harvested about a dozen of them off one of my plants and had 2 back to back that were stupidly hot. Gave the rest to someone else.
This is my first year growing Shishitos. They are very prolific. What do you all do with them? I found a great stuffed (shrimp) recipe online.
I grew them for 3 or 4 years and only ever had one hot one, all the others were bell pepperish. Unfortunately my 2 year old niece managed to pick that hot one. It was like a mild jalapeno but she took it like a champ.