The ‘Habanada’ Chili Is A Habanero With All The Flavor, No Heat

Pepper Profile: Habanada #9670 (20 seeds) – This new heatless habanero has all the exotic, floral flavor of the habanero pepper with absolutely none of the heat. Hence, the clever name: haba (for habanero) nada (Spanish for nothing). Expect abundant harvests of these 2 to 3 inch long peppers when the plants have heat, full sun, even watering, and not too much nitrogen. Harvest peppers when bright orange for their best flavor. Bred by Dr. Michael Mazourek of Cornell University. 70 days green; 90 days orange. #habanada #habanero #pepper #seeds #tomatogrowerssupply #tomatogrowers #food #farmtotable #growyourownfood #seedtotable #local

A post shared by Tomato Growers Supply (@tomatogrowers) on Jan 26, 2017 at 5:33am PST

Have you ever bitten into a raw habanero to see what it tastes like? If you’re a crazy chili-head like me, you probably got a split second of fruity, floral flavor before the powerful heat of the chili blew your mouth up. A lot of spicy chilis have flavor qualities like the habanero, but the spiciness of the chilies keeps us from enjoying that full experience.

Thanks to some researchers at Cornell University, you can now enjoy the full flavor that a habanero has — with none of the heat.

A few years ago, Cornell’s Dr. Michael Mazourek developed the “Habanada,” named for the fact that it is a habanero with “nada” of the heat. After getting seeds of a similar, non-spicy habanero plant from New Mexico, he went to work. Dr. Mazourek experimented with everything from lab assays to cross-breeding the variety with regular habaneros to try and come up with a chili that had no heat, but showcased the unique flavor of the habanero. Thousands of peppers and 13 breeding generations later, he finally came up with the commercialized form of this new chili.

After doing incredibly well at trade shows and The World Food Expo in Milan, the chili pepper began to appear in top restaurants across the country over the past year, with “Chef’s Table” star Dan Barber and his NYC restaurant, Blue Hill Farm, being one of the more well-known places to feature it recently.

As people fall in love with this new chili, more avenues to acquire it are becoming available. While you’re more likely to find it in high-end restaurants nowadays, you can also purchase some seeds to grow your own, if you desire.

As a chili lover, I’m super curious to try these out and see what this heatless chili is all about. And hopefully, I’ll be able to enjoy more than just a split-second of that fruity, tasty habanero experience.