Small Peppers Guide: Tiny Delivers Big

They may be small, but most of these peppers still pack plenty of heat. Our small peppers guide focuses on chilies about an inch long or less. They’re tiny fruits, but as anyone who knows the pepper scale can tell you, the tiniest chilies often pack more than their share of punch. Not all of them, though: a few sweet ones made the list, too. Many are ornamental peppers with a lot of visual flair, but there are plenty of culinary chilies here as well, like the pequin and chiltepin, which add smoke and fruit to their heat. Here’s how hot each one is, what it looks like and how to use it.

Small peppers at a glance

Everything below is collected in one place, sorted from mildest to hottest. Heat is measured in Scoville heat units (SHU), and the third column shows how each pepper compares with a jalapeño.

Pepper	Heat (SHU)	Compared with a jalapeño	Size and shape
Biquinho	500 to 1,000	Much milder	About 1 inch, teardrop-shaped
Peppadew	1,100 to 1,200	About ⅕ as hot	About 1 inch, round
NuMex Centennial	1,000 to 5,000	About half as hot	About 1 inch, bulb-shaped
Black Pearl	10,000 to 30,000	About 4 times hotter	½ to 1 inch, bulb-shaped
Filius Blue	30,000 to 50,000	About 8 times hotter	Up to 1 inch, conical
NuMex Twilight	30,000 to 50,000	About 8 times hotter	About 1 inch, bulb-shaped
Aji charapita	30,000 to 50,000	About 8 times hotter	About ¼ inch, pea-sized
Explosive Ember	30,000 to 50,000	About 8 times hotter	About 1 inch, conical
Pequin	40,000 to 60,000	About 10 times hotter	½ to 1 inch, oval
Dundicut	55,000 to 65,000	About 11 times hotter	About ½ inch dried, berry-shaped
Chiltepin	50,000 to 100,000	About 14 times hotter	¼ to ½ inch, round
Prairie fire	70,000 to 80,000	About 14 times hotter	About 1 inch, bulb-shaped
Peri-peri	50,000 to 100,000	About 14 times hotter	About 1 inch
Siling labuyo	80,000 to 100,000	About 17 times hotter	About 1 inch, up to 1½
Cumari do Pará	50,000 to 300,000	About 33 times hotter	Up to ½ inch, bullet-shaped
Wiri wiri	100,000 to 350,000	About 43 times hotter	About ½ inch, cherry-shaped
Dragon’s Breath	Up to 2,480,000 (reported)	About 470 times hotter	About ½ inch

Are small peppers always hotter?

Not always. It’s easy to assume that a tiny pepper will be a hot one, and on this list most of them are. But the biquinho and the Peppadew are both about an inch long and barely register on the Scoville scale. Heat depends on the variety, so it’s worth checking before you bite.

Can you eat ornamental peppers?

Yes. Ornamental just means a pepper’s grown mostly for its looks, and every ornamental on this list is edible. Many weren’t bred for flavor, though, so you’ll often get heat and a plain, peppery taste more than anything complex. A few, like the Chinese five-color and the prairie fire, have more flavor than most.

Mild small peppers

These three bring the small size without the burn.

Biquinho peppers

The biquinho, whose name means “little beak,” is a Brazilian pepper about an inch long, rounded at the top and pinched to a point. It’s a Capsicum chinense, the same species as the habanero, and it’s got that fruity, citrusy habanero-like flavor with almost none of the heat. It’s popular in Brazil and Peru, and you’ll often find it pickled.

Peppadew peppers

The Peppadew is round and about an inch across, a lot like a cherry tomato. The name is a trademark for sweet piquanté peppers grown in South Africa’s Limpopo province, and they’re sold seeded and pickled in a sweet and sour brine. You can stuff that round, hollow shape with cheese, too.

NuMex Centennial

The NuMex Centennial is an ornamental from New Mexico State University. Its pods are about an inch long, bulb-shaped and tapering to a point, and one plant carries purple, yellow, orange and red pods at once. The flavor’s bright with a little bitterness, but it’s edible, and a few will add color to your salad.

Medium-heat small peppers

Most of these are about as hot as a cayenne, so you’ll get a real kick for their size.

Black Pearl peppers

The Black Pearl is a dark beauty. Its pods are a half inch to an inch long, black at first and crimson red when ripe, on a plant with deep purple to black leaves. It’s about as hot as a serrano, and the red pods are the hotter ones. The flavor’s light, a little sweet and citrusy, and it’ll add plenty of heat to your salsa.

Filius Blue peppers

Blue isn’t a common color on the Scoville scale, but the Filius Blue starts out a deep indigo and purple before ripening to orange and then red. Its pods are conical, and they’re no more than an inch long. It’s as hot as a cayenne pepper, with a plain, peppery flavor, so you’ll want it where heat matters more than nuance, like in a salsa or hot sauce.

NuMex Twilight

The NuMex Twilight is another New Mexico State University hybrid, bred from a Thai ornamental pepper. Its inch-long pods start purple and ripen through yellow and orange to red, and they stay on the plant long enough that you’ll see every color at once. It’s cayenne-hot, with a flavor that’s a little salty and bitter, but it’s still great in a colorful salsa.

Aji charapita

The aji charapita is about the size of a pea, a quarter inch across. It comes from the jungles of northern Peru, where it mostly grows wild, and it ripens to yellow. It’s a lot like a tiny habanero in flavor, fruity and nearly tropical, but its heat is closer to a cayenne’s. In Peru, it’s often crushed over rice, fish and chicken as a finishing spice.

Explosive Ember peppers

The Explosive Ember grows its one-inch pods upright in bunches. They start a near-metallic purple and ripen to orange-red, against purple flowers and dark leaves. It’s cayenne-hot, and while the flavor isn’t complex, there’s a simple sweetness that’s tastier than most ornamentals.

The Chinese five-color pepper belongs in this group too, with about the same cayenne-level heat. Its inch-long pods run from purple to cream, then yellow, orange and red, and there’s more sweetness to it than most ornamentals, so it’s a good pick for an edible garden.

Pequin peppers

The pequin is less than an inch long and oval, shaped more like a grain of rice than a ball. It’s often confused with the chiltepin, and both get called bird peppers. Ripe red pequins are smoky and a little nutty, with some fruit and citrus, and at their hottest they’ll go past a cayenne or a tabasco pepper. It’s one of the peppers in Cholula hot sauce.

Extra-hot small peppers

From here on, you’re above the hottest cayenne, and a few of these reach habanero heat.

Dundicut peppers

A staple in Pakistani cooking, the dundicut is usually sold dried, when it looks like a wrinkled red berry about half an inch across. Fresh, it’s teardrop-shaped and about an inch wide. It’s lightly fruity with a sun-dried bitterness, and it heats up curries, chutneys and sauces. Its heat starts 5,000 SHU above the hottest cayenne.

Chiltepin peppers

The chiltepin is tiny and round, a quarter to half an inch across, so it’s easy to mistake for a berry. It grows wild in the Southwestern U.S. and northern Mexico. Don’t pop one like candy: at its hottest it reaches 100,000 SHU, well past a pequin. It’s smoky and earthy, and it’s used in salsas, sauces, soups and stews.

Prairie fire peppers

With inch-long pods that look like Christmas lights, the prairie fire pepper is a popular ornamental if you want a real splash of color. One plant can carry green, purple, cream, yellow, orange and red pods at once. It’s hotter than most ornamentals, about as hot as a Thai pepper, and it’s got more flavor too, with a fruity, tangy undertone.

Peri-peri peppers

The peri-peri pepper, also called the African bird’s eye, is about an inch long. Chilies most likely reached Mozambique with Portuguese traders around 1500, and this one’s become an African favorite. Its heat falls between a cayenne and a habanero, with a sweet, slightly smoky flavor. You can mix it with oil, lemon, salt and garlic for a basting sauce, or dry and grind it for a rub.

Siling labuyo

The siling labuyo is the “wild chili” of the Philippines and a favorite in Filipino cooking. Most are about an inch long, though they’ll sometimes reach an inch and a half, and they’re a little rounder and shorter than Thai chilies, which they’re often mistaken for. They’re hotter, too, with a heat floor of 80,000 SHU. The flavor’s plain and peppery, and it’s on Slow Food’s Ark of Taste as an endangered heritage food.

Cumari do Pará

The cumari do Pará is closer to a pea than a pepper, a slim little bullet no more than half an inch long that ripens from green to yellow. It comes from the state of Pará in Brazil, and it’s rare outside it. You won’t know how hot one is until you bite it, since its heat runs from a hot cayenne up to a well-above-average habanero. The flavor’s fruity and nearly tropical.

Wiri wiri peppers

The wiri wiri pepper looks like a colorful little cherry, about half an inch across, but you’ll get habanero or Scotch bonnet heat from it. It’s fruity with a tomato-like tang, and in Guyana it’s a staple, used in a spicy mango table sauce and in pepper rum for finishing stews and soups.

Super-hot small peppers

Only one tiny pepper reaches super-hot territory. Wear gloves and eye protection when you handle anything this hot, and know how to cool chili burn.

Dragon’s Breath pepper

The Dragon’s Breath pepper is tiny, about half an inch in early photos, and it made headlines in 2017. It was grown in Wales during a plant-food trial involving Nottingham Trent University, and it was reported at 2.48 million SHU. That would have beaten the Carolina Reaper, but it’s never been confirmed by Guinness World Records. The official record went to Pepper X in 2023, and our hottest peppers list has the rest of the top tier.

Which small pepper should you use?

It depends on whether you’re cooking with them or growing them.

• For cooking: Pequin, chiltepin, aji charapita, peri-peri, siling labuyo or dundicut, which all bring flavor along with the heat.
• For little or no heat: Biquinho or Peppadew, especially if you’re stuffing or pickling.
• For the garden: Black Pearl, Filius Blue, NuMex Twilight, Explosive Ember, prairie fire or Chinese five-color.
• For serious heat: Wiri wiri or cumari do Pará, used a little at a time.

Related reading

• Round Peppers Guide: From Marble-Sized to Apple-Wide: Chilies shaped like marbles, cherries, apples and pumpkins.
• Ornamental Peppers Guide: The Bold And The Colorful: More peppers grown as much for their looks as their heat.
• Colorful Peppers Guide: Rainbows Of The Scoville Scale: Peppers that ripen through a rainbow of colors on the plant.