Piquín / chiltepín
Capsicum annuum var. glabriusculum · Chilli pepper
Top 10 pairings
The chiltepín — sold dried as chile piquín — is a tiny, wild Mexican chilli barely the size of a peppercorn, and the ancestral wild form of Capsicum annuum, the species behind the jalapeño, serrano and bell pepper. Often called the "mother of all chillies," it packs a fierce, flashing heat of roughly 50,000–100,000 Scoville Heat Units into a pea-sized pod — a burn that arrives fast, spikes hard and fades almost as quickly as it came.
Picking a good onedrag
UnderripeOverripe
Red ripePeakIt's sweetest and hottest now. Roast it, make chilli oil or sauce, or string it to dry.
ColourFully turned, bright even red
The pressFirm, springs straight back
Cap and stalkCap green and tight, stalk firming
Smell at the capWarm and fruity over the green
Reading a just ripe one. Move the slider and the rest of this page — nutrition, pairings — updates with it. These cues are Chilli's, and hold across its varieties; where this one differs, its own page says so.
What you get from one
73%
Edible part
45 g · fresh pod, stem and seeds out
62 g
Weight each
each one
Keeping ittap a temperature
Below 7 °C the skin pits and the cap moulds: in two weeks at 5 °C, in days at 0 °C.
90-95%
Humidity
Loosely bagged
Airflow