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 …
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 and the guajillo are two of the workhorse dried red chiles of the Mexican kitchen — both mild, both prized for the color and body they lend to a sauce rather than for heat. They even share a flavor family: on our …
The Anaheim pepper is one of the mildest true chilies you can cook with, and that mildness is exactly why it’s worth choosing a substitute carefully. Reach for the wrong one and you can lose the crisp, faintly sweet character that makes the Anaheim so …
Somewhere along the way, a tidy little rule took hold: bell peppers come in male and female, and you can tell which is which by flipping one over and counting the bumps on the bottom. It spreads every year across social feeds and produce aisles, …
You won’t find two peppers on the Scoville scale more alike than the scotch bonnet and the habanero. They carry the same searing heat, they belong to the same flavor family, and side by side in a cooked dish most people can’t tell them apart. …
Jalapeño peppers are everywhere, so you’ll rarely be stuck without one. That makes “what’s a good jalapeño substitute?” less a rescue mission than a choice: do you want the same bright, grassy flavor with a different level of heat, do you just need fire, or …
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