While there are hundreds of peppers of the world you can grow (see just some of them above), we have a (fairly long & evergrowing) list of our favorite peppers that we grow each and every season. Many of these varieties are hard to find at the store, so they are great to grow – plus, all homegrown peppers (like tomatoes) taste better than store-bought! You can also let them fully ripen to get the maximum flavor that you'll want to taste and grow again and again. Here's our top picks for peppers to grow each year:
Must-grow Sweet Peppers:
Cubanelle - crispy and sweet!
Fushimi - long savory sweet peppers from Japan, delicious fresh!
Shishito - uber productive, tasty peppers great for quick stir frying with olive oil!
Gypsy Pepper - a newer favorite, very crisp, productive, delicious!
Must-grow Mild Peppers:
Padron - a classic, hard to live without these tasty gems with just a hint of heat!
Paprika - you can't beat homemade paprika with homegrown pods!
Sweet Banana - you just can't beat homegrown pickled banana peppers!
Anaheim - a classic green chile that's easy to grow, very productive and early
Poblano - another classic that is hard not to have in the garden
Hatch Green Mild - NM 6-4 - super-popular, tasty, fleshy-walled green chile
Getting hotter...
Cascabella Peppers - these spicy gems are great for pickling
Big Jim Legacy Green Chile - nothing beats a BIG JIM green chile!
Must-grow Hot Peppers:
Jalapeno Jaloro - spicy yellow jalapenos, so prolific!
Fish Pepper - Love the mottled foilage and the abundant spicy peppers for cooking!
Hatch Green Hot - DoubleCross - a great Hatch chile for those who like it HOT!
Easter NuMex - These are the PRETTIEST peppers! Great in patio pots.
Serrano Tampiqueno - crisp, bright & notably hotter than the jalapeño it resembles
Aji Limo / Lemon Drop - oh so tasty fruity yellow gems!
Goat Horn - a productive cayenne-like pepper that we love
Jalapeno Early - classic early jalapeno, start picking in just 65 days!
Lemon Spice Jalapeno NuMex - an extra hot Jalapeno for those who like it HOT!
Must-Grow Hotter Peppers:
Habanero Orange - you can't beat the fruity flavor of Habaneros in hot sauce!
Chocolate Habanero - just delicious in salsas and hot sauces
Must-grow Super Hot Peppers:
Bhut Jolokia Red - the classic ghost pepper packs a PUNCH!
Carolina Reaper - the hottest pepper you can grow, fruity and so good in hot sauces
Jalapeno Jaloro, shown above, are very productive and so good for golden poppers or in salsa recipes!
Ok, ok, so that wasn't a short list. And I'll tell ya, we have so many others we edited from the list! Afterall you only have so much room each year. But another fun pepper to grow that I wanted to mention is the Habanada which has all the fruity flavor of a Habanero but with nada heat! They make excellent fruity sweet poppers.
Habanada plant, a no-heat Habanero, shown above
Aleppo peppers ( also known as the Halaby pepper) are also so delicious when dried and used as pepper flakes, you'll never go back to regular hot pepper flakes again! Just let them ripen to red, then harvest and hang them to dry. Lastly, crush the Aleppos into the most flavorful flakes you'll ever experience.
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So to wrap it up, there are no right or wrong peppers in your garden, but we do recommend growing a variety of peppers so you can enjoy all the rainbow of flavors, colors and heat levels that all the peppers of the world have to offer.
Happy growing!
