Only the seeds of the habaneros I bought are hot - low quality, or simply the nature of chili?

I'm a newbie when it comes to any type of chili. I'm alright at eating food with chili, but don't really have any experience with using it.

I bought the one I used at a local supermarket. I first tried eating a small slice to measure its hotness, but couldn't really feel much heat at all. Pleasant flavor though.

Then I tried to eat a small slice with one (1) seed on it, and this time, it was pretty damn strong, I'll admit. But the "flesh" itself was not strong. The food I made (ground beef, crushed tomatoes, onion) was about ~1.5kg total and filled my pan, but when I added half the chopped habanero with ~6 seeds there was not noticeable hotness at all. I didn't notice this until I served since my tastebuds were giving me false readings from the first tasting I did.

So, this lack of hotness, is it because

That's how habaneros work (surprised me that I didn't get any hotness though)
The type I bought was not very strong.
I prepared it all wrong. Extract flavor using oil first?
My supermarket sells non-fresh / low quality habaneros?

Or something else?

The habaneros I bought

chili-peppers spicy-hot

Best Answer

I've experimented with growing different varieties of peppers over last decade and found by surrounding one with other types of peppers (sweet, medium or hot) and increasing or reducing water near harvest time you can completely change the heat and flavor of the peppers from that plant. If planted in a pot you can move it around your garden to get different tasting peppers from the same plant throughout the season.

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Quick Answer about "Only the seeds of the habaneros I bought are hot - low quality, or simply the nature of chili?"

Recipes often instruct you to remove the seeds from a spicy pepper if you want less heat, which seems to imply that the seeds are the source of the fire. But while removing the seeds might help a little, they're not the true producer of heat!

Are habanero seeds hot?

It's a highly pungent and aromatic pepper with a blistering heat that is concentrated in the seeds and spongy white inner membranes of the fruit. Habanero seeds are edible, but they're significantly hotter than the flesh and can cause significant temporary pain or discomfort.

Are the seeds in chillies hot?

Are Chili Pepper Seeds Spicy? Chili pepper seeds are actually NOT spicy, as they do not contain capsaicin, the chemical that makes peppers hot. Capsaicin is actually located within the whitish pithy pepper innards, the placenta, which you can remove to make the pepper milder in most cases.

Are habaneros hot if you remove the seeds?

For most peppers, you can remove the seeds and pith and it's effectively \u201cde-clawed.\u201d For habaneros, they still have a lot of heat even after you remove the pith. So much so that you can't fully enjoy their flavor.

Why are my habaneros not hot?

Crops of chili peppers not hot may be a combination of improper soil and site situations, variety, or even poor cultivation practices. Chili pepper heat is borne in the membranes surrounding the seeds. If you get healthy fruit, they will have a full interior of the pithy hot membranes and a higher heat range.

How hot are Chocolate Habaneros

More answers regarding only the seeds of the habaneros I bought are hot - low quality, or simply the nature of chili?

Answer 2

Grocery store hot peppers can definitely be hit-or-miss, I have the most experience with jalapenos. The seeds/membranes do have the most heat, but the spicyness of the pepper does vary from one to another.

Peppers from my farmer's market are always hot, the ones from the grocery store is always hard to say; sometimes they are super-hot and other times they are bland. I always buy more than I need and go by taste. If you do cook them in oil first, it does leech out the spicy flavor which would make it hotter, but this shouldn't be necessary.

Answer 3

Peppers are highly impacted by the environment they are grown in. Amount of water, altitude, nutrients in the soil and "design". Case in point, Hatch New Mexico is famous for the quality of green chile peppers grown there. Hatch is located in an old bend/delta of the Rio Grande that moved a 1000 years ago or so. That is one of the attributes many consider to be what makes them so special. There is also a "designed" species called "Big Jim's" that are very flavorful but the heat is hit and miss. Two Big Jim's from the same field can be exceedingly hot to exceedingly mild. So I would imagine the same is true for habanero. Try a different source.

Answer 4

I can't offer you an explanation but I can tell you this. Whenever I buy Habaneros I get a mixed bag of red and orange. The flesh of the orange ones are always mild with zero heat, but the flesh of the red ones are particularly hot. The seeds from both are always hot.

Sources: Stack Exchange - This article follows the attribution requirements of Stack Exchange and is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Images: DLKR, Mikhail Nilov, Karolina Grabowska, Karolina Grabowska