These unusual, thumbnail-sized Brazilian Biquinho sweet peppers are absolutely delightful when pickled. Perfect in salads, on sub sandwiches, on pizzas or charcuterie boards, Pickled Sweety Drop Peppers are easy-to-make refrigerator pickles that will last all winter long.
First off, special PSA: people of Cincinnati, if it’s still September ’19 when you’re reading this, set aside some time on a Saturday morning so that you can pop out to the Anderson Farmers’ Market to pick up these completely unique peppers. Look for Cassandra Farms, and tell him the blonde, Biquinho (bee-keen-yo) pepper lady sent you. 😉
You might even run into me there, because I have to stock up this weekend. (Don’t worry, I won’t take them all!)
What are Sweety Drops?
These unique specimens are tear-drop-shaped peppers with a pointy end, and taste like extra flavorful sweet bell peppers. A native Brazilian cultivar, they’re also known as Biquinho peppers or “little beak” peppers. You eat the whole pepper, seeds and all.
I first learned about these Sweety Drop Peppers at an olive bar in a local (but sadly now defunct) grocery store. They were unnamed in the display, and I spent almost two years being completely obsessed with finding them, trying to figure out the right thing to search for on Google, with no success. (Who knew there were so many small peppers in the world!)
Finally, the food gods showed mercy on me, and I stumbled on a jar at Whole Foods one day. At last — I had a name! Except for Cassandra Farms, I’ve been unsuccessful at finding a retail source for the fresh peppers, but you can buy a jar of them already lightly pickled from Amazon.
And now I grow these delightful peppers every year — I bought the seeds for both the red and yellow varieties from Johnny’s seeds (who doesn’t seem to sell them anymore, boo. Try Baker Creek.
Learn how to grow biquinho peppers on my gardening blog, SproutedGarden.com
If you love pickled things, I dare say you’ll thoroughly enjoy these little nuggets. They’re crunchy, sweet, with just the tiniest bit of heat, and small enough to toss in your mouth like popcorn. Sometimes, I just eat them straight out of the jar, lol.
And like most refrigerator pickles, there’s no rigamorale of water-bath canning. Heat the brine and pour them over the seasonings and peppers. Seal, cool, refrigerate. Done.
Quick preservation tip: Even though this recipe is for refrigeration, the heat from the brine will likely cause canning jars to self-seal. That doesn’t mean they’re shelf-stable, but, it should lengthen its lifespan in the fridge, unopened.
I use 1-cup Ball jars (which hold quite a bit, as you can see from the photos), which leaves more peppers sealed in other 1-cup jars, and hopefully lasting longer, instead of storing a whole batch in a quart jar, which gets opened immediately and exposed to environmental contaminants.
What do the plants look like? For the curious, as I hinted above when I wrote this post in ’19, I grew lots of Biquinho peppers plants during the 2020 growing season. They have beautiful foliage, and the colorful peppers make them look like they’re decorated with lights:
This is the yellow variety, but I also grew the red. They’re prolific producers, and the peppers are highly enjoyable to crunch on while working in the garden.
Toss them into salads, top a pizza, add them to sub sandwiches. And definitely don’t forget those holiday cheese boards! Anywhere a cucumber pickle works, these pickled Sweety Drop Peppers will, too.
Pickled Sweety Drops
Ingredients
For the brine:
- 1 cup white vinegar
- 1 cup water
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon pickling salt
For the seasoning:
- 6 green peppercorns
- 1/2 teaspoon dried marjoram
- 1/2 teaspoon pickling or kosher salt (coarse, in both cases)
- 6 green cilantro seeds (optional – you’d likely have to grown them)
- 2 cups Biquinho peppers , stems removed, well-cleaned*
Equipment
- 2 16-ounce Ball jars or 4 8-ounce Ball jars
Instructions
- Even though this is a recipe for refrigerated pickled peppers (not shelf-stable), you can increase the peppers’ longevity by sterilizing the jars in which they’ll be stored. Boil the jars, lids and rings prior to use.
- In a small pot, bring the brine ingredients to a boil and stir until the sugar and salt have fully dissolved.
- Divide the seasonings evenly between the jars, and spoon in the cleaned peppers. You can fill the jars as loosely or tightly as you want, since you're not producing a shelf-stable product.
- Carefully pour the brine over the peppers, to cover. Wipe the rims and seal the jars to fingertip tightness. Check the lids again in 5 minutes — they may need additional tightening.
- Let the jars cool on the counter. If the jars were filled to the top, they’ll likely self-seal. This is a good thing, but note that they’re still not shelf-stable.
- Place the cooled jars in the fridge for at least 10 days before serving, although you’ll get a nice hint of the good things to come by day 5.
Keiana
Sunday 14th of January 2024
Hi! How long will these last in the fridge? I have about a cup of biquinhos I'd like to pickle!
Keiana
Wednesday 17th of January 2024
@Karen - SoupAddict, Ok, thank you! I'll be sure to eat them quickly :-)
Karen - SoupAddict
Sunday 14th of January 2024
I’m not a food preservation expert, so it’s difficult for me to say. Plus, a number of factors impact how long they’ll stay viable, including the amount of vinegar used, the temp in the fridge, whether all the peppers stayed submerged in the brine, etc.
Generally speaking, they should be good for a month or so, but take care to inspect the jar each time, looking for mold or slime or off odors.
Jeanette
Sunday 19th of November 2023
My friend gets these at Jungle Jim's already pickled. Delicious!
Karen - SoupAddict
Sunday 19th of November 2023
Sometimes Kroger carries them too in their tiny olive bar. Sadly, not jarred.
Major Pepper
Monday 18th of September 2023
Our story sounds like many others, we had them on a pizza many times at out favorite pizza place and they buy them by the gallon jar and it does not say on the label what type of pepper they were :( , we spent years trying to find out what they are, I've grow 10-15 pepper types each year for 20 years and finally my wife found them at an olive bar at a Krogers in Dayton, bought seeds and harvested about 3 gallons of the Reds and 2 gallon of the yellows today 9/2023, I'm looking for picketing recipes for these and found yours and the story had me laughing so I commented, we will take your recipe into consideration when deciding how to pickle these, I'm probably going with a recipe with Cachaca in it?.... but I might? do several small batches of several styles of pickling these then we would do yours also?.
Mary Jo
Sunday 3rd of September 2023
2 years ago we had pizza at a new restaurant and there were the Sweetie Drops on the top. So my search for seeds lead me to Pepper Joes on line store. Last year we enjoyed 2 pints of pepper which was NOT enough to last very long. I saved seeds and this year planted and have 3 plants full of peppers. They are just starting to ripen and I can't wait. These are so good on salads, in pasta, on pizza, sandwiches, or just to snack on. THANK YOU. A new favorite pepper. We are on the Washington Coast and they grow super well in my greenhouse. Will save seeds again this year for more plants next year.
SoupAddict
Sunday 3rd of September 2023
It makes me a little cranky that they ripen so late but they are WORTH it!
Chris
Sunday 6th of November 2022
Still trying to figure out how to put 1 cup vinegar + 1 cup water + 1/2 cup sugar + 2 cups of peppers into two eight ounce jars. But then I multiplied the recipe for 6 quarts of peppers, and ended up jarring 8 quarts of biquinhos and 4 quarts of aji limon - tossing out enough brine for another quart!
SoupAddict
Sunday 6th of November 2022
8 quarts of biquinhos - wow! I just harvested mine and will have enough for about a quart and a pint (very slow-growing season for me this year). But, yes, the maths there did not work with the equipment listed. The recipe is correct, but it's the wrong equipment link. It should've read (and I've changed it), (2) 16 ounces jars or (4) 8 ounce jars.
Congrats on your pepper harvest - truly impressive!