Cherry Bomb Peppers

Ch-ch-ch-cherry bomb!

If you want to turn up the heat this summer, try a cherry bomb pepper. These adorable innocent-looking fruits resemble fat cherries. (They are botanically fruits because they contain seeds.) The thick flesh has a sweet flavor that imparts little to no heat. But as the name suggests, your mouth is in for an explosion of heat if you eat the seeds.

Realistically, these peppers feel more like a mild jalapeño than a red hot chili pepper, ranking at 2,500-5,000 Scoville units. The Scoville scale measures the heat level, which is produced by capsaicin, the chemical that gives hot peppers their “hotness”.

Cherry bombs may be eaten raw (the flesh is not spicy, just the seeds), pickled as a side dish at a barbecue or stuffed and baked. Nevertheless, my kids had a blast (pun intended) tasting them!