Compare prices for fresh jalapeño peppers across Edmonton retailers.
Jalapeños are sold at two stages — the familiar deep green, which is mature but not fully ripe, and the less common red, which is fully ripe and a little sweeter and often hotter — and they keep colouring after picking, so the colour to buy depends on the goal. For peppers to use across the week, choose firm, deep-green fruit with taut, glossy skin that feels heavy for its size, and press gently: good flesh springs back. The thin pale or tan lines that sometimes web the skin, called corking, are a sign of maturity rather than damage and usually mark a hotter pepper, so seek them out for more heat or pass them by for a milder fruit. For a riper, hotter pepper later, pick green ones just starting to blush and leave them on the counter, where they redden over several days; the stem is a useful age check at any stage, since a fresh green stem browns and dries as the pepper gets old.
A jalapeño is ready to cook the moment it is bought, so having good peppers later in the week is a matter of storage rather than ripening. Store them dry and unwashed, loosely bagged in the refrigerator crisper, where firm green fruit holds for one to two weeks; washing before storage traps moisture and speeds decay. Like all peppers, jalapeños are chilling-sensitive and keep best a little above standard fridge temperature, around 7 to 10 °C, so a brief stint in the crisper is fine but long, very cold storage brings on surface pitting and soft spots. In Edmonton the practical caution is the cold outside the fridge: never leave peppers in a freezing vehicle or an unheated garage, since exposure below freezing turns the flesh water-soaked and mushy within a day. For longer keeping, jalapeños freeze well whole or sliced and need no blanching.
A jalapeño is past its useful window when the skin dulls, wrinkles, or shrivels, the firm flesh turns soft and a pressed dent fails to spring back, or sunken brown spots and slime appear on the surface; mould or a dried, blackened stem is the same signal from the top. Some light surface wrinkling on a red pepper is simply advanced ripeness, and the fruit is still good if it remains firm, but widespread softness, watery patches, or a sour, fermented smell mean it should be discarded. Water-soaked, pitted patches point to cold damage rather than ordinary age, and that pepper should be used promptly before it breaks down further.
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