Recipe: Cheesy Padron Peppers (2024)

FAQs

What is special about Padrón peppers? ›

Padron chile peppers have a vegetal and grassy flavor mixed with a mild to hot level of spice. If they are left to ripen to full maturity, a sweeter flavor will develop, and the spice with build in intensity.

Compare that to a typical jalapeno pepper and you'll find most padron peppers are about 10 times milder.

Padrón peppers are often served as tapas or side dishes in Spain. They are loved for their easy preparation and the surprise elements that make eating them interesting. It is customary to eat the whole pepper, including the seeds and stalk.

As far as flavor, both peppers have their fans. Padróns have a smokey, earthy flavor with a complexity that comes from the heat that is lurking just behind the curtain. Shish*tos are sweeter, less complicated, and have thicker walls that can handle more time in the hot pan and make for a satisfying bite.

Padrón pepper provides Vitamins A, B2, B6, C, E and K, as well as Potassium, Phosphorus, Magnesium and Calcium. Its high content of Vitamin A is beneficial for vision problems. Thanks of its content of Vitamin C, it helps us prevent colds, in addition to maintaining healthy cells, skin, blood vessels and bones.

“Pimiento de Padrón” from the Capsicum annuum family, is the popular name for the Herbón pepper. Herbón is a town in the Padrón municipality, and the peppers can hold a D.O.P. (Herbón) if they are grown and picked within 5 villages to traditional methods. Padrón peppers are tiny, green peppers.

But in Padrón peppers, the amount of capsaicin varies a lot depending on how much sun and water the plant got when growing. Traditionally Padrón pepper pickers have been women, and they mix the peppers they think will be hot with ones that will be milder.

Harvesting: Harvest frequently from late summer, picking peppers that have reached about 5-6cm long. We tend to find that the bigger they get, the hotter they get, so leave them to get larger at your peril!

Padron Pepper Alternative? The closest alternative in size, shape and taste are shish*to peppers.

Once you've opened the bag or punctured the peppers, you can expect them to last about a week, provided they're properly stored in the fridge. Freezing these peppers is also a great way to extend their life; you can expect them to last for about 8-12 months when stored correctly in a freezer.

What supermarket sells Padron peppers? ›

Sainsbury's Padron Peppers, Taste the Difference | Sainsbury's.

Fresh, these peppers can keep for one to two weeks stored in the crisper drawer, unwashed, and in a plastic bag.

Padróns should be harvested when they are 2-4" in length.

If left on the plant, fruits will grow much larger and reach up to 8" in length. These fruits however have very tough skin and are often extremely spicy!!

Information. The plants can grow to 2m high and produce a perpetual crop throughout the summer provided you keep picking them. If left to mature, the fruits turn a light red and grow to about 10cm long and 4cm wide at the shoulder - and taste a lot hotter. Heat: very mild/heatless if picked early/small-size.

Padron peppers are a classic Spanish delicacy.

The age of the plant also determines the amount of capsaicin in the fruit, and older plants usually show more pungent fruits [5]. Probably as a consequence, the Padron pepper fruits are also hotter at the end of the season, in September–October (Figure 5).

Harvesting: Harvest frequently from late summer, picking peppers that have reached about 5-6cm long. We tend to find that the bigger they get, the hotter they get, so leave them to get larger at your peril!

Padron Peppers 180g

These small, finger sized, peppers were brought to Spain from Mexico by returning conquistadores and first cultivated in a Galician monastery, where they became known as Pimientos de Padron.

Padron Pepper Alternative? The closest alternative in size, shape and taste are shish*to peppers.