Kitchen Pepper
Catarina Pepper Seeds
HOT PEPPER · 2027 VARIETY · 10+ SEEDS · Catarina Pepper Seeds Catarina is a small Mexican red chile for cooks who want a compact pepper that dries well, seasons cleanly, and still has enough heat for salsa, vinegar, flakes, and ever...
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- Maturity
- 85 days
- Plant habit
- Productive annuum plants with small oblong red pods
- Season
- 2027
HOT PEPPER · 2027 VARIETY · 10+ SEEDS
Catarina Pepper Seeds
Catarina is a small Mexican red chile for cooks who want a compact pepper that dries well, seasons cleanly, and still has enough heat for salsa, vinegar, flakes, and everyday chile powder. The pods are short, glossy, oblong, and easy to use by the handful.
Why Grow It?
Grow Catarina when you want a small red chile with real kitchen value. It is especially useful for drying whole, grinding into powder, making chile vinegar, cooking into salsa, or adding clean heat to beans, soups, braises, tacos, eggs, and pantry sauces.
At A Glance
In The Kitchen
- Drying: Dry ripe pods whole for winter chile powder, flakes, or pantry jars.
- Salsa: Toast dried Catarina lightly before blending with tomato, onion, garlic, and lime.
- Vinegar: Infuse ripe pods for a sharp table vinegar with clean red-chile heat.
- Everyday cooking: Use fresh or dried pods in beans, soups, eggs, tacos, marinades, and braises.
Growing Notes
- Start early: Sow indoors 8-10 weeks before transplanting.
- Keep warm: Germinate in warm soil, ideally 24-29 C.
- Transplant late: Move outside only after nights are reliably warm.
- Harvest stage: Pick fully red for drying, salsa, and the best pantry flavour.
FAQ
How hot is Catarina pepper?
Treat Catarina as a hot pepper, roughly around 30,000-50,000 SHU. Heat can vary by plant and growing conditions.
What is Catarina best for?
It is best as a drying and seasoning chile: flakes, powder, salsa, chile vinegar, beans, soups, braises, and pantry sauces.
Can Canadian growers ripen it?
Yes, start indoors early and grow in a warm, sunny, protected site. Containers or raised beds can help improve soil warmth.
Seed note: Small drying chiles can show natural variation in pod size, heat, and ripening speed. Save seed from healthy plants with the red oblong Catarina shape you want to continue.
Start indoors 8–10 weeks before last frost. Germinate at 26–30 °C on a heat mat; peppers stall below 22 °C. Pot up to 10–15 cm before hardening off outside after nights stay above 12 °C.
Feed balanced through bloom, then bump potassium for fruiting. Stake taller varieties. More detail in our full Canadian growing guide.
Match the pepper to the technique: thin-walled varieties blister fast in a hot pan; thick-walled ones roast or stuff beautifully; fruit-forward ones make balanced sauces and pickles. The variety's flavour profile is your shortcut — see Choosing the right pepper for a use-case guide.
