Pizza Hut used to feature gourmet pizza options that included Peruvian cherry peppers. It seems they’ve discontinued this option as of early 2018. Not without controversy, of course!
I’ve received some questions asking exactly what a Peruvian cherry pepper is. Here’s the low down.
Pizza Hut uses a pickled product called Sweety Drop Miniature Peppers for their Peruvian cherry peppers. These small, teardrop-shaped peppers originated in the Peruvian Amazon.
The idea for Sweety Drop was born when a worker from the firm Gandules went on a trip to the Peruvian jungle. He was fascinated by a teardrop-shaped pepper he found there. These peppers were brought back to the Gandules, Inc. headquarters in Peru. The growing and cultivation process was perfected over a period of two years. Gandules is now very proud of its product and has been seeking new markets for it.
Sweety Drops have a sugar-like sweetness and pair well or can be a feature in salads, pasta, baked goods, and, of course, pizza.
The Sweety Drop peppers are originally Inca Red Drop peppers, which are then pickled. This relatively small strain (the scientific classification is capsicum baccatum) is very sweet with a mild to moderate heat range. The pepper’s skin is typically medium-thick. They mature from green to orange to red.
This very productive plant does well in containers and will grow to 60 cm high. Seeds can be purchased from several online seed retailers.
