Head to head
Banana Pepper vs Hungarian Hot Wax
They look nearly identical and one is up to thirty times hotter. This is the swap that ruins a dish.
| Banana Pepper | Hungarian Hot Wax | |
|---|---|---|
| Heat (SHU) | 0–500 | 5,000–10,000 |
| Species | C. annuum | C. annuum |
| Origin | United States | Hungary |
| Ripe colour | Red | Red |
| Wall thickness | Medium | Medium |
| Days to maturity | 70 | 65 |
| Flavour | mild, sweet, tangy, grassy | sweet, tangy, crisp, mild heat |
Figures from each variety's own record. Heat is a range because heat is a range — see the Scoville scale for why.
The difference
Two pale yellow, waxy, tapering pods that markets mislabel constantly — and the difference is not cosmetic. A banana pepper runs from nothing to about 500 SHU. A Hungarian hot wax runs into the thousands and, fully ripe, can reach fifteen thousand. That is a difference you notice in the first mouthful and cannot undo once it is in the pot.
Shape helps a little. The banana pepper is longer, more slender and thinner-walled; the Hungarian wax is shorter, plumper and fleshier. But they overlap enough that appearance is not a safe test, and the honest advice is the unglamorous one: taste a sliver before you commit a whole dish to it.
They are close relatives — the banana pepper was developed out of Hungarian wax stock — which is why references disagree about whether they are one variety or two. Wikipedia contradicts itself between its own two articles on exactly this point. Treat them as separate: the heat difference is real regardless of how the family tree is drawn.
Both are picked yellow and both pickle beautifully, and the Hungarian wax also climbs steeply in heat as it reddens, so a jar of them can vary by picking date as well as by variety.
Can you substitute one for the other?
Only downward, and carefully. Hungarian wax will stand in for banana pepper if you accept real heat. Banana pepper in place of Hungarian wax gives you a dish with no heat at all, which for a pickle is usually a disappointment rather than a disaster.
Other comparisons
Or put any two varieties side by side in the compare tool.