Jalapeño Gigante

Bright, grassy jalapeño flavor with a clean vegetal bite when green; fully red fruit is slightly sweeter and deeper. Heat is immediate but moderate, in the same range as a typical grocery jalapeño.

Jalapeño Gigante is a United States commercial jalapeño selected for extra-large, thick-walled pods rather than extra heat. Compact plants typically reach 45–60 cm and ripen fruit in about 70 days from transplant. Pendant pods start glossy dark green and finish red; flavor is the familiar grassy, vegetal jalapeño taste, a little sweeter when fully ripe. Heat stays in the ordinary jalapeño band of about 2,500–5,000 Scoville Heat Units. The extra flesh makes the peppers especially useful for poppers and other stuffed dishes, and they also pickle, grill, can, and smoke into chipotle. Garden-center plants labeled Jalapeño Gigante II, and seed packets labeled Gigantia, are the same kind of oversized jalapeño sold under a different shop name—not a hotter or differently shaped pepper.

The jalapeño takes its name from Xalapa (Jalapa), Veracruz, Mexico, where this thick-walled green chile has been cooked for centuries. Jalapeño Gigante is a modern American version of that pepper: same flavor and medium heat, just grown larger so one pod can fill a popper. Buy the seeds and the packet usually says Jalapeño Gigante. Buy a starter plant at a nursery or hardware store and the tag often says Jalapeño Gigante II. Both names describe the same jumbo fruit—about five inches long, thick-walled, green then red. No catalog or breeder note treats II as a new pepper with different heat or shape. Other seed houses sell a similar oversized jalapeño as Gigantia.