Does It Matter Whether You Use Red Or Green Jalapeños?

Most jalapeño peppers that you see at the grocery store are green. In fact, there are probably plenty of folks out there that have never encountered a red jalapeño. But they do exist, and they really aren't so different from the green ones you are more used to seeing. Should you find the grocery store with only reds available (and your world-famous jalapeño poppers on the menu that night), don't worry, they will turn out just fine — and your guests might even enjoy the slightly different take. After all, the major difference between red and green jalapeños is simply that the reds are fully matured, while the greens are picked earlier in the growing cycle.

This is the same phenomenon that contributes to the difference between green, yellow, and red bell peppers, namely how long they were given to mature on the plant. And the flavor differences follow that same rule as well. Just like red bell peppers are sweeter than green bell peppers, so too are red jalapeños sweeter than green jalapeños. As these fruits — yes, like tomatoes, botanically peppers are also fruits — ripen on the plant, they produce more sugars, resulting in a sweeter pepper.

The difference in sweetness is not extreme, but the changes in flavor that occur during ripening will alter the outcome of your recipe. Green jalapeños add a strong vegetal component to a dish, particularly when used raw, and this beloved flavor is significantly reduced in the riper fruits. In many cases, you will be fine to replace green jalapeños with red, but if you are unsure, just slice off a bit and taste it for yourself.

The ripening process of jalapeño peppers affects more than just the taste and sweetness. Generally, the longer they mature, the hotter they get. There are a lot of factors that determine how spicy any particular pepper is, such as the soil, growing conditions, and plant variant, but typically you can expect a red jalapeño to be a little bit spicier. Don't be alarmed though, even at full maturity, jalapeños stick to a relatively low spot on the Scoville scale — the metric by which all spiciness is ranked. At their hottest, jalapeños top out at about 8,000 Scoville units, which is still lower than even the mildest serrano pepper.

While you can tell roughly how hot a jalapeño is by other factors (like lines on the skin), the biggest factor comes down to the plant itself. In recent years, there has actually been a huge reduction in jalapeño spice levels across the board as a result of selective breeding. The unpredictable nature of spiciness in jalapeños was a problem for food manufacturers, as it made it hard for them to dial in a repeatable level of heat in their products.

As a result, jalapeños were bred to be very mild. This way, they could get the pepper's flavor into their products and then add a specific quantity of oleoresin capsaicin — a pepper extract that is spiciness in its purest form — resulting in stable recipes with the perfect amount of heat. As a result, most peppers on the market these days are pretty mild, and ripening won't make much of a difference. If you're looking for real spice in your hot jalapeño recipes, your best bet is growing them yourself.