Piri piri pepper plants
The pepper in the sauce, before anyone adds lemon and garlic.
By Debra Austin
Species: Capsicum frutescens
The plant, not the bottle
Piri piri, peri peri, and pili pili are names for a small hot pepper tied to Portuguese and African cooking, usually a Capsicum frutescens. The bottled sauce is that pod plus garlic, lemon, and oil. Growing the plant gets you the pod. It does not get you the sauce by itself.
The listing on this site is titled Piri Piri. The handle says aji because that is how the batch was entered. The plant is the frutescens, listed as such on our heat table. It is not a Peruvian baccatum.
How hot piri piri is
Our plant is listed at 50,000 to 175,000 SHU. That covers the hot band and touches the bottom of what people call superhot. It is hotter than a cayenne and milder than a scorpion. The small pod makes it easy to overdo.
Cooking with the pods
Steep split pods in lemon and oil with garlic if you want the familiar sauce. Crush a fresh pod into a marinade for chicken. Dry the rest. Frutescens pods are thin and they dry clean. One plant produces a lot of them once it starts.
Growing piri piri
Frutescens plants are upright and they hold pods pointing up. They like heat and they sulk in a cold week. A three to five gallon pot works. Bring it inside if you want it to keep going. These are perennials in a warm room.
The Piri Piri we grow
Questions people ask
How hot is a piri piri pepper?
The plant we list is 50,000 to 175,000 SHU. Hotter than a cayenne, well under a Reaper.
Is peri peri the same pepper?
Yes. Peri peri, piri piri, and pili pili are spellings of the same name. The sauce recipe is separate from the plant.
Is piri piri a Thai pepper?
Both can be small and hot. Ours is a frutescens under the African and Portuguese name. Our Thai plants are annuums and they have their own page.
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