Manzano chile: black seeds and no dried version
The only chile here from a different species. Black seeds, furry leaves, hotter than it looks, and the reason you will never find it dried.
- Heat (Scoville)
- 12,000–30,000
- Recipes here
- 0
- Also sold as
- manzano chile, rocoto, peron chile
Where to buy in the US: Uncommon in the US and usually sold under its South American name, rocoto, in Latin markets — Peruvian and Bolivian groceries stock it more reliably than Mexican ones. Frozen rocoto paste is a reasonable fallback for cooked dishes.
Every other chile on this site is Capsicum annuum or, in the habanero’s case, chinense. The manzano is Capsicum pubescens, a genuinely different species, and it shows in three ways nothing else here shares.
Its three oddities
Black seeds. Every other chile has cream or straw-colored seeds. The manzano’s are jet black, and it is the fastest way to identify one.
Furry leaves and stems. Pubescens means hairy. You will not see this in a store, but it is where the name comes from.
It cannot be dried. The wall is so thick and so wet that it rots before it dehydrates. There is no dried manzano, no manzano powder, no manzano flakes. If you see any of those, it is something else with the wrong name on the bag.
That last point has a practical consequence: this is the only chile in the pantry with no shelf-stable form. When it is not in the store, you do without.
How hot it is
12,000 to 30,000 Scoville. Well above a jalapeño or serrano, well below a habanero.
It looks harmless — it is fat, glossy, and shaped like a small apple, which is what manzano means — and people treat it like a bell pepper. It is not one. Treat it as roughly five times a jalapeño.
What it tastes like
Fruity in a way that is genuinely apple-like, with a sharp, almost sour finish. There is no earthiness and no smoke.
That fruit-and-acid profile is why it works raw and sliced, where a lot of hot chiles need cooking to be pleasant.
Taking the heat down
The wall is thick enough that seeding it makes an unusually large difference here — more than with any other fresh chile, because there is so much mild flesh relative to the veins.
Cut it open, take out the black seeds and the pale veins, and you are left with something you can slice raw onto a plate.
Soaking the slices in lime juice with salt for ten minutes takes it down further and is the standard preparation in Michoacán and Puebla, where it is served alongside food as a condiment rather than blended into a salsa.
Handling it
Wear gloves, or at least wash with soap right after. It is hot enough to matter, and the thick flesh means you are handling it longer than you would a serrano.
What it is for
Sliced raw with lime and salt, as a table condiment. This is the main use.
Stuffed, since the wall is thick enough — a regional dish in Michoacán.
In sauces where you want heat and fruit, particularly with pork.
It goes badly in anything long-cooked, where its fresh acidity boils off and leaves only heat.
Buying and storing
Firm, glossy, deep yellow to orange, heavy for its size. Green ones are unripe and taste grassy.
In the crisper, about a week. Do not try to dry it. It freezes acceptably for cooked uses and turns to water raw.