It literally doesn’t get any easier than this. You don’t even need a knife. Just a pint of shishitos, a lil dollop of your favorite oil (I’d suggest anything other than olive oil due to the high temperatures), a pan, and a source of heat. Shishitos are usually incredibly mild, though the common saying is that about 1 in 10 will pack as much heat as Sriracha. These peppers make an awesome appetizer, just enjoy every bit of it except for the little stem.
Gorgeous shishito peppers, before the pan sear
Ever grown shishito peppers? If not, you probably should. They’re really productive plants that don’t seem to get pest problems or diseases easily. We start our seeds in April (right around the same time as tomatoes and eggplant) and pot them up into larger containers so the transplants are nice and big before they move out to the field. After the danger of frost passes, they migrate to the field, where we’ve been growing them in two rows per bed, about eighteen inches apart. They produce before any other pepper we’ve grown, are extremely flush with peppers for what feels like months, are popular at market, delicious and actually really easy to grow! Plus, if you let them change from green to red, you are pretty much guaranteed to have a spicy pepper so you can get the best of mild & spicy peppers off of one plant. I feel like I’ve talked about them too much now... so let’s move on to the recipe, shall we?
Get ready for this! It’s going to take you about ten minutes and requires almost nothing. You could also personalize this in any way you desire. Want to go garlic crazy... do it! Love ginger? I dare you to add that too. At any rate, I love shishitos for what they are, and therefore don’t add much to them. They don’t need it. But you do you. That’s the beauty of cooking at home.
Ingredients
1 pint of shishito peppers (or 2, if you’re extra hungry like us!)
2-3 tablespoons of oil (I used 2 tablespoons canola & 1 of sesame oil)
2 tablespoons of soy sauce (or more to taste)
Pinch of salt
Instructions
Add oil to a pan and turn heat to medium high. Once the oil starts to sizzle, add your shishitos and stir somewhat often to cook all of the peppers evenly. When you see that most of them have browned slightly, add the soy sauce and throw a lid on the pan for about thirty seconds. Remove lid and stir again, until they look to be seared at the level you like best. For me, this all took about five minutes.
Let cool for a minute or so and enjoy!!! Maybe throw a pinch of salt on there, maybe don’t.
Throw any additional shishito recipe ideas my way please. This is just by far the easiest and my favorite way to enjoy them.