Yellow Peppers Guide: Brighten Up Your Garden And Plate

Chili peppers come in many colors. In fact, they’re so colorful that they have as much love as edible landscaping as they do in the kitchen. Our yellow peppers guide helps you match pepper color to taste and heat, so you can find that perfect brightly hued hot pepper for your need.

Note: We cover both yellow ornamental peppers and culinary hot peppers below in this list. We also allow for multi-colored ornamental pepper plants where yellow is a predominant color and plants where yellow is predominant color in its maturation cycle (but the chili may not end yellow in its fully matured state). Therefore, you will see some photos below that show multi-colored plants as well as chilies that tend towards a more yellow-orange.

Yellow Bell Peppers

Bell peppers come in many colors, but yellow may very well be the cheeriest of the bunch. They bring life to a plate, whether roasted or simply served raw in salad. And as bells are sweet peppers, there is zero heat to consider.

Trinidad Perfume

Trinidad Perfume (a mild 0 to 500 Scoville heat units or SHU) age to a yellow (or sometimes a yellow-orange) hue. They have a dangerous look — sharing that scorpion-like tail of many super-hots, but really this chili is a teddy bear in the heat department. It has a mild simmering warmth and a delicious tropical sweetness that pairs well with salsas.

Banana Peppers

The banana pepper (0 to 500 SHU) is well known as a pickled condiment, but the fresh pepper is really fun to eat, too. It has a natural tang to its flavor, along with a little sweetness. It matures from green to a banana-like yellow — though the yellow can be streaked with shades of green. They are delicious a top salads and sandwiches when fresh or pickled. And it’s very easy to make pickled banana peppers at home.

Chilly Chili

As an ornamental pepper, the Chilly Chili is a real looker, with a wide variety of yellow, orange, and red peppers on the plant as it ages. And unlike many other ornamentals, this hot pepper carries very little heat (1 to 1,000 SHU, comparable to a poblano pepper at its hottest). The downside — there’s not a lot of complexity to the overall flavor of the Chilly Chili. It’s not a real standout in the kitchen beyond cooking with the multiple colors.

Hungarian Wax Peppers

Hungarian wax peppers look a lot like the banana pepper (aging to a banana-like yellow) and also share that natural tangy sweetness. But, the heat profile (5,000 to 10,000 SHU) is completely different. These chilies are comparable to jalapeño level heat (even slightly hotter). It’s still a very edible heat — a perfect step up for real spicy cooking.

Bolivian Rainbow Pepper

Another multi-colored ornamental pepper beauty, the Bolivian rainbow pepper has its fair share of yellow in its color palette, along with shades of purple, orange, and red. The pods stand upright and their cone-like shape gives the appearance of Christmas lights. It packs a punch in the heat department (10,000 to 30,000 SHU), reaching up to cayenne level heat at its hottest.

Lemon Drop Pepper

Often used as an ornamental pepper because of its goldenrod-yellow color, the lemon drop pepper delivers in the taste department more than most ornamentals. Like many other yellow peppers, there’s a sweet tanginess here and a more significant heat. It matches well against the serrano pepper in spiciness (15,000 to 30,000 SHU), but can reach up to cayenne pepper level heat. The lemon drop pepper’s pods hang down on the plant, so the look isn’t as dramatic as the Chilly Chili or other plants with upright pods.

Aji Amarillo

The aji amarillo is the most popular Peruvian chili pepper, and for good reason. Its flavor is tropical, yet sun-kissed, with a little raisin-like finish, making it a delicious culinary chili pepper to explore. In terms of color, it starts as a yellow pepper, and as it ages, it takes on more of a fiery yellow-orange. There’s also a decent amount of heat here (30,000 to 50,000 SHU), the same heat range as the cayenne pepper.

Aji Charapita

These tiny chilies are another Peruvian favorite, with lots of fruitiness and decent medium heat (30,000 to 50,000 SHU). And when we say tiny, we mean tiny — the pods are typically 1/4 an inch wide — comparable to chiltepin in size. The size and beautiful yellow color may scream “ornamental pepper”, but the plant itself is bushy and the pods are tiny, so the effect isn’t as dramatic as a typical ornamental.

NuMex Twilight

Yellow is part of the overall color profile of this popular multi-colored ornamental pepper. The pods of the NuMex Twilight start purple, then age into yellow and shades of oranges and reds. The pods are small (one inch long), but they stand upright on the plant giving a blast of color to landscaping. It has a cayenne level heat (30,000 to 50,000 SHU) and an overall neutral peppery flavor that can tend towards salty and bitter. Read: it’s not the most flavorful pepper on the planet, but really it’s all about the looks here.

Prairie Fire Pepper

The prairie fire pepper has a Christmas light look — with yellow as part of the mix, along with green, red, orange, purple, and cream. It’s almost candy-like in color, but the heat is anything but. This is a chili that borders on extra hot (70,000 to 80,000 SHU), often twice the heat of a cayenne. It has a neutral peppery flavor behind the heat, so this ornamental pepper is perfect for making colorful salsas.

Devil’s Tongue Pepper

The Devil’s Tongue is apt for the heat of this pepper. It’s habanero-level spiciness here (125,000 to 325,000 SHU), and with it that typical fruitiness seen with habanero-like peppers. The most common variety of Devil’s Tongue pepper ages into a yellowish orange color, really brightening up a garden for those growers into extreme heat eats. Interesting fact — while you may think “Caribbean pepper” with the Devil’s Tongue flavor and heat, the roots of this pepper are actually from Amish country in Pennsylvania.

Madame Jeanette Pepper

Another habanero-like chili, the yellow Madame Jeanette (a.k.a. the Suriname Yellow) packs a big-time punch (125,000 to 325,000 SHU). But while other chilies of this type enjoy pronounced fruitiness, the Madame Jeanette is more subdued in flavor (beyond extreme heat), particularly when eaten raw. When it’s cooked, the Madame Jeanette does provide a light tropical fruitiness. Fun fact — the fiery Madame Jeanette is named after a famous Brazilian prostitute.

Fatalii Pepper

The common yellow fatalii is much like a habanero as well, but the heat profile ticks things up another notch (125,000 to 400,000 SHU). It’s scorching, with a decent amount of citrusy fruitiness to the flavor. But you may be hard-pressed to get to the flavor as fatalii have a quick heat. There’s no slow burn here. That quick heat is perfect for fiery tropical hot sauces and salsas.