Matt Bray 
Serrano peppers are one of the most useful chilies you can cook with, but they can still be surprisingly hard to track down. And when they’re missing, the right substitute matters. Reach for the wrong one and you can lose the crisp, bright, grassy character …
The serrano is the jalapeño’s hotter, brighter sibling — a small, thin-walled Mexican chili named after the sierras, the mountains of Puebla and Hidalgo where it originated, and a permanent fixture in Mexican kitchens for salsas, pico de gallo, and guacamole. At 10,000 to 23,000 …
Few chili names cause as much confusion as these two. The aji limo and the aji limón — better known as the lemon drop pepper — are both bright, citrusy Peruvian chilies with nearly identical “aji” names, and they’re routinely mistaken for each other. But …
The aji limo is a hard chili to replace, because you’re really replacing two things at once: a solid medium heat (30,000 to 50,000 Scoville heat units) and a very specific bright, citrusy, floral aroma. Reach for the wrong stand-in and you can match the …
The aji limo is one of Peru’s essential kitchen chiles — a small, intensely aromatic pod that carries the bright, citrusy heat behind the country’s national dish, ceviche. It belongs to the Capsicum chinense family, the same fruity, tropical branch as the habanero, but where …
There’s no better way to wake up a slice of morning toast than with a spoonful of mango habanero jam. This is a tropical, sweet-hot preserve that leans into one of the great flavor pairings: ripe, fragrant mango against the fruity fire of the habanero. …
Crack open a jar of pepperoncini and there’s treasure in there beyond the peppers themselves. Pepperoncini juice is the brine the peppers are packed in, mostly vinegar, but infused along the way with salt, a whisper of the mild pepper’s own flavor, and usually a …
The California chile and the ancho are two of the mildest, most versatile dried chiles in the Mexican pantry, the gentle, sweet-earthy foundations under so many red sauces and moles. Both are dried peppers rather than fresh, both belong to our Nutty, Earthy & Dried …
The California chile — the dried, ripened form of the Anaheim — is one of the gentlest dried chilies in the Mexican pantry, and that mildness is exactly why it’s worth choosing a substitute carefully. Its job in a dish is rarely heat; it’s the …
The California chile is the dried, ripened form of the Anaheim pepper — the same familiar chili picked red instead of green, then dried until it turns a deep, leathery brick color. In that form it takes on a whole new personality. Where a fresh …
Free printable
Get the free PepperScale Scoville Heat Chart
25 chilies ranked from sweet to scorching — free and printable. Join the newsletter and we’ll send it to your inbox.
Subscribers get 15% off any PepperScale ebook — code in welcome email.
No spam — just Wicked Wednesday recipes and occasional extra dashes of chili pepper inspiration. Unsubscribe anytime.