Why Jalapeños Have Become Less Spicy

My mom eats a hot pepper with pretty much every meal. When I was growing up, it was usually a jalapeño — she would chop it up and mix the pieces into a salad or bite directly off the pepper. But over the years, she has gradually transitioned to spicier chile options, like serranos and habaneros. 

This isn’t just because her spice tolerance has increased; it’s also because she’s found that store-bought jalapeños lack the heat they once had. My mom isn’t alone in this observation. Many chile consumers have taken notice, and as someone who has a low threshold for spice, I can now handle most raw jalapeños from the grocery store.

If you’ve been wondering whether these popular peppers have lost their intensity, experts can confirm that this isn’t just in your head; many jalapeños in the U.S. are less spicy than they were a few decades ago. In this week’s episode of the podcast The Sporkful, guest host Willa Paskin of Decoder Ring does a deep dive into why jalapeños have become less potent over the years — and humans are to blame.

Although Mexican food is one of the most popular cuisines in the United States today, it wasn’t always as prevalent across the country. As Paskin details, “In the early nineteen eighties, demand for Mexican food was growing all over America. Sales at Mexican restaurants had doubled in just a few years, but consumer tastes varied widely.” With a growing interest in Mexican food came an increase in demand for jalapeños, one of the most commonly used peppers in the cuisine.

This demand translated to interest in consumer products as well, such as jars of salsa in grocery stores. However, there was one major issue for producers: the heat of jalapeños was unpredictable, making it challenging to satisfy those varying consumer tastes. 

Dr. Stephanie Walker, an extension vegetable specialist at New Mexico State University, explains to Paskin that, “For chili peppers, predicting pungency is hard. So the pungency level of a different chili pepper variety is based on genetics, but also the environment. When we did vats of salsa, we wanted to have it mild, medium, or hot. And if you happen to get a load of jalapeños that were extra hot, we might mislabel a whole day’s run of medium or mild salsa.” 

If you bought a mild salsa and found your mouth on fire, you’d likely be upset. But Walker points out that while you can’t make a hot pepper less spicy, you can add heat to something that’s mild. Although jalapeños themselves don’t have consistent levels of heat, the substance that makes them spicy — oleoresin capsaicin, which is extracted from chili peppers — is much more predictable. 

Additionally, as Paskin mentions, “Jalapeño is a family. There are so many different varieties of jalapeño. It is not just a pepper.” Here’s what all this meant for producers: If they could develop a variety of jalapeño that was always mild, unlike the options available at the time, they could use it for any salsa and add heat as needed to create spicier offerings.

In search of a milder version of the beloved pepper, brands reached out to chile expert Dr. Benigno (Ben) Villalon. Villalon holds degrees in plant breeding, genetics, and pathology, and he served as a professor and research scientist at Texas A&M University for thirty years.

As Villalon tells Paskin, “They call me Dr. Pepper, you know, so I was the man for the job… They came to me — Pace Foods, Old El Paso, La Victoria, and all of the big guys — they came to me and they said, ‘If we had a mild jalapeño, we could sell a lot more salsa picante with less heat.’ So I said, ‘Well, we already have it. We’ve been working on it since 1972.’”

The podcast host summarizes Villalon’s early research, outlining that “In the seventies, Ben had been trying to breed a virus-resistant bell pepper by crossing it with different peppers, including jalapeños. After a lot of crossbreeding, he realized he’d inadvertently created a low-heat jalapeño.” This initial mild jalapeño had lost much of the pepper’s core flavor along with its spice, and it took Villalon about 10 years to develop a variety that didn’t have the heat but maintained the chile’s classic flavor profile.

“That low-heat pepper was released in the early 1980s as the TAM Jalapeño…. And it seemed to do exactly what the processing plants wanted,” Paskin details. The Sporkful’s usual host, Dan Pashman, chimes in with more context, explaining that the new pepper “Was controllably, mildly hot. It was resistant to bugs. It didn’t develop kind of gnarly black spots, and it wasn’t so curved. It’s a glorious little invention.”

This new pepper did everything that salsa companies hoped it would. According to Villalon, “The salsa industry really started booming. Their sales went up, not only for the processing industry, but also for the fresh market. By 1990, the United States outsold ketchup two to one with the mild salsa.”

In the early 2000s, two even more predictable chile varieties were developed by Villalon’s successors at Texas A&M. Because 60% of jalapeños are sent to processing plants, these were the varieties that farmers prioritized, making them the dominant crop. The side effect? These mild jalapeños have started appearing in our grocery store produce aisles, and now home cooks who enjoy heat are taking notice. (You’ll likely observe that many store-bought jalapeños that are more straight in shape too. This is evidence that mild jalapeño varieties aren’t as curved.)

If you’re pining for a more potent pepper, don’t despair. Mass-produced jalapeños sold in the United States may often be this mild breed, but just like with other crops such as tomatoes or beans, there are heirloom varieties of peppers available.

Walker suggests that “If you want a good, hot jalapeño, buy some of these heirloom varieties, you know, plant your own.” And if you can’t find or grow heirloom jalapeño, then do what my mom — and apparently also Dr. Pepper himself, Ben Villalon — does: snag some spicier options at the store, like serranos, habaneros, or Scotch bonnets.