Purple beauty peppers are a variety of Capsicum annuum that will add a wonderful pop of color both in your garden and in your favorite dishes. Reminiscent of bell peppers, purple beauties are mild in heat but offer a delicious sweet flavor.
What Are Purple Beauty Peppers?
Purple beauties are medium-sized bell peppers with a unique, deep purple color. While purple on the outside, these peppers are a brilliant lime green color on the inside.
In terms of heat, purple beauty bell peppers come in at 0 SHU on the Scoville Scale, making them some of the mildest peppers out there. While they aren’t spicy, they offer delicious, sweet flavors that accompany a crisp and tender texture.
These peppers are excellent substitutes for your standard red, yellow, orange, and green bell peppers. Purple beauty sweet peppers have a similar flavor to other bells but will give your dish its exotic purple colors.
Are Purple Beauty Peppers Spicy Or Sweet?
Purple beauties are known for their sweetness. Their 0 SHU rating makes them mild to the point where all notes of heat are nonexistent.
Compared to your average jalapeno pepper, which comes in 2,500-8,000 SHU, purple beauties are thousands of times less spicy. Purple beauties are similar to other sweet bell peppers and gypsy peppers, which also share the 0 SHU rating on the Scoville scale.
Where purple beauties shine is in their sweetness. Having little heat but fantastic fruity flavors make purple beauties versatile in the kitchen.
How To Use Purple Beauty Peppers
There are many fantastic ways to incorporate purple beauty peppers into just about any of your favorite dishes. From simply roasting them in a sweet peperonata to making classic stuffed peppers, purple beauties will add a lot of sweetness and color to your cooking.
They are even delicious when eaten raw! I love using them in my salads or as a garnish on sandwiches. Even slicing up a purple beauty and eating it with a dip makes a perfect snack.
I recommend trying them in one of my favorite recipes, chiles toreados. This dish is all about simply sauteing your peppers to bring out the best of their natural flavors. While this dish is traditionally made with hot peppers like serranos and jalapenos, adding a few sliced purple beauties will add a nice sweetness to balance the dish.
It’s important to note that when purple beauties are cooked in any manner, whether grilling, sauteing or roasting, they will lose most of their luxurious purple hue. Cooked-down purple beauties will turn their flesh green, and the skin darkens to a deep green.
Substitutes for Purple Beauty Peppers
If you can’t get your hands on purple beauty peppers but are tired of using standard green peppers, several pepper substitutes will work.
I think that pimentos, poblanos, and aji dulce peppers are the best substitutes for purple beauty peppers.
These peppers are also mild, with poblano chiles coming in on top at 1,000-2,000 SHUs, which is still relatively mild. Each of these substitutes has something unique to offer, but all of them are just as versatile as purple beauties.
In terms of flavor, aji dulces and pimentos will offer similar sweetness to purple beauties. Poblanos tend to be more earthy and smoky in taste but are similar in size to purple beauties making them perfect for stuffing.
Where To Buy Purple Beauty Peppers
It’s unlikely that you’ll be able to find purple beauty peppers at your local grocery store, as they are considered a rare variety of pepper. You’ll maybe see them in your supermarket’s “heirloom” veggie section, but it’s far more likely to find them seasonally at nearby farmer’s markets.
Your best option for having purple beauties of your own is to order pepper seeds online and grow them yourself! Trusted online seed companies, such as Pepper Joe’s, are an excellent way of sourcing purple beauty sweet pepper seeds. They will offer other vegetable seeds to complement the rest of your garden.
Can You Grow Purple Beauty Pepper?
Like any other bell pepper, purple beauties are hearty and easy to grow in any home garden! They will grow in most warm weather climates with similar growth patterns to other bell peppers, but let’s take a look at some gardening tips for purple beauty peppers.
- Light: Full Sun. Purple beauties need at least 8-12 hours of natural sunlight daily.
- Temperature: These peppers ideally need temperatures of between 70°F-80°F during the day and can survive as low as 60°F at night time.
- Plant Spacing: Purple beauties are best started from seed indoors and usually need a germination period between 8-10 weeks. A heat mat can speed up the process. Once they’re ready to plant in the ground after the last frost date, you’ll want row spacing for each plant to be at least 2 feet apart in well-drained soil with a 6.0-6.8 pH range.
- Days to Maturity: You can expect your plant to be fully grown in 60-80 days, and they will yield anywhere between 6-12 peppers per plant.
- Watering: Water your plants on average once per week, as peppers only need about one inch of water weekly. Again, ensure your soil is somewhat loamy, as you don’t want your pepper plant’s roots to be overwatered.
- Overwintering: Like most pepper plants, you can bring your purple beauties in for the winter if you want another harvest for the next year. Keep them in a dry, well-lit place and continue watering them every week.