Banana peppers are a sweet pepper they are supposed to taste similar to green peppers. Nothing you do can make a banana pepper hot. For future reference 'Hungarian Wax' is a pepper that looks very similar to the banana pepper, but it is hot.

Er...I've had banana peppers before and I know they're suppose to have a little bit of a bite. These have absolutely nothing. They taste exactly like green peppers.

A while ago I ran across something on the web where someone else said their banana peppers weren't spicy and it was suggested that they watered them too much. Their suggestion was to not water them the last 2 weeks before harvest. I just don't know if I've reached harvest yet.

My experience with bananna peppers is in sync with the comments by weirdtrev.

I concurr...banana peppers taste like gr. peppers...maybe slightly sweeter...but no spice, pucker or hotness to them...

This is a prime example of where ones needs to know which cultivar they are growing. There are several banana peppers starting with the original Banana. The there is Banana Bill, Park's Sweet Banana, Supersweet Banana ... All are sweet peppers. There are others with similar appearance but without banana in the name.
The hot pepper that people mistake for the Banana is as trev stated a version of the Hungarian Wax ( there are several versions varying in heat), There are others such as the Cascabella which have the same general appearance.
{{gwi:83187}}

cross country nurseries lists hot and sweet banana peppers on it's chili chart.

i'm growing the sweet banana and the hot wax. just had a hot wax and it was warm enough that before i got to the stem i had to stop and cut out the placenta and seeds.

dad's growing the hot banana and just emailed me confirming it's HOT !

regards,
wildlifeman

I'm curious then, what do places like Subway use? I've always found their peppers to have some zing to them...do people marinade them?

I mean, why use yellow peppers at all if they're cousins the green pepper taste identical to them?

Why use green peppers if they are identical to yellow? ⺠People just like having a choice I guess. Banana peppers are much more prolific than bell peppers. I prefer banana peppers over bell peppers any day. It is kind of awkward biting into a bell pepper, but there is no such problem with a banana pepper. I never get the yellow peppers Subway has, if they have a kick then they must be some sort of wax pepper. If the people at subway call them banana peppers, that doesn't mean that is necessarily what they are. Maybe they marinade them, but I couldn't see making a sweet pepper hot when they could just start with a hot pepper.

My banana peppers are sweet also. The ones you get at subway are put into a type of brine. You can buy a jar at a grocery store and after eating the peppers, use the juice for your own.

Try this to make your own, they are good. Add a few hot peppers to make them all milder.

Here is a link that might be useful: Pickled Banana Peppers Recipe

Thanks everyone for your submissions!

Wait, are they actually more prolific than bell peppers? If so I must get some! Was so disappointed by the three-peppers-per-plant harvest last year on my bell peppers.

Can anyone else recommend banana peppers to me? Or, what are the most prolific pepper varieties likely to be?

Banana peppers are prolific for me, but you won't find their walls to be as thick as bell peppers. Still they have good pepper flavor and I use mine in many different ways, grilled is my favorite. Those pictured above by Farmerdilla are superb looking specimens. Maybe he would be willing to slice one open vertically and post that picture too so you can see the thickness of the walls. How about it Farmerdilla?

There is a hot pepper thread with some hot pepper experts.

If you want a little warmth and lots of flavor I suggest you try Chimayo.

Bananna peppers simply have no flavor just as bell peppers have no flavor. You will get a tad of flavor when ripe on all peppers.

Ripe is the best way to pick peppers.

You might also try some low heat New Mexico style peppers for flavor. The Chimayo is a 400 year heirloom from Chimayo New Mexico. Sort of an old original. It is considered like Champaign. A real gourmet pepper.

You can do a search on gw for chimayo. it will tell you where to buy some in chimayo new mexico so you get the real deal.

http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/pepper/msg0620402632325.html

is a good thread. there are other thread below.

Here is a link that might be useful: chimayo pepper

Aulani, I would except that is a photo from yesterday. This year I have La Rouge Royale in that slot. I am a firm advocate of knowing cultivars that one plants. Taste is in the mouth of the taster. If you find one you like, then you can grow it again. If you go to a nursery and buy a banana pepper, it could be one of several dozen cultivars with the only commonality an elongated shape and banana yellow color. I like sweet pepper fried, stuffed, and raw. BUT I use different cultivars for each purpose. Hot peppers I prefer to dry and use for seasoning, so Long Slim Cayenne is my favorite, altho I use Jalapenoes for pickles and used raw in soups and stews. This year I have Satan's Kiss, which I use primarily for chili poppers.

LINK BELOW.
I hope this picture is helpful. I don't normally get good peppers. The spring winds usually weaken them, and dry them out, and the afternoon dry sun just finishes them off.. but this year, they did REALLY good.. I was looking for a recipe for the Subway peppers too, when I ran across this site. Last year, I got the wrong peppers, and had a few hot wax peppers too.. :)
But I want a good recipe for jalapeno poppers.. what is the batter made of? And do you cook the peppers first? Help! LOL
How do you post a picture directly into a message?

Here is a link that might be useful: cut open banana pepper

the green peppers you find at Subway and/or Olive Garden salads is the Pepperoncini Salad Pepper having awful time finding seeds.

I think the assumption here is the the tangy peppers that Subway uses are banana peppers. There is no reason to believe that to be the case (though maybe they marinate them). Banana peppers are NOT spicy. My wife hates spicy stuff, and at least for small peppers, will only tolerate banana peppers that I grow. I grow hot peppers, but I keep them away from her!

Why use yellow or red peppers at all if they are sweet? For the color! Green pepper in a green salad is kinda boring.

Stores here sell peppers in the spring as sweet bananas and hot bananas. I always buy the hot (one of the very few plants I don't start myself). And for the poster who is looking for a bell pepper type pepper that yields heavily, try Corno di Toro. It's not shaped like a bell, but it's thick walled, tastes just like a bell and bears very heavily, and early. Turns color well too--there is a red variety and a yellow one.

That's a good point. There ARE hot banana peppers. I usually think of them as being all sweet, but that's not the case.

I'm having this same problem! I thought too that maybe it wasn't ripe. I'v planted banana peppers for 4 years now from seeds and they always have a bite. I didn't have a garden last year though so I'm guessing I just forgot that they don't taste right until they are ripe. But they should most definitely have a bite. Very strange to me too.

I've got some hot banana plants growing, picked some when they weren't quite ripe, not hot at all. Started leaving them on the plants a lot longer, now they have a little heat to them. Have given some to a friend and she told they were pretty spicy and she eats Thai peppers all the time

Disclaimer, I prefer Hot Banana over Hungarian wax, by just a tad and for a different reasons, i've been eating and growing them both my entire life.

But otherwise it's fairly well known that Hot Banana has a lot of heat variance, and many of them will barely give you a tickle even when ripe. Whereas Hungarian wax, heatwise, is more reliable and predictable.

Steve

If you are looking for a really hot banana or wax pepper, try the "Inferno" variety(That's what my local greenhouse calls them). These things are very very hot, And I'm a pepper nut.