Biquinho Pepper substitute

Best substitute

Peppadew peppers (pickled, drained)

Use the same amount by volume; halve or quarter them to match biquinho size as the biquinho pepper you are replacing

Best for charcuterie and cheese boards

Close match

For biquinho peppers on a cheese or charcuterie board, pickled peppadew peppers are the closest thing on a supermarket shelf, followed by pickled cherry peppers or drained pickled piquillo strips. If you only need the sweet-sour pop and not the shape, halved pickled grape tomatoes or cornichons cut into rounds will carry the dish.

Other biquinho pepper substitutes

Ranked, with the exact amount to use

2Pickled cherry peppers (sweet, not hot)
Different taste
Use the same amount by volume, sliced into strips or quarters
Round pickled peppers from the Italian-American deli aisle, sold sweet or hot.
What changes
Best for
antipasto plates, sandwiches, salads, grain bowls
Crunchier and much more vinegar-forward than biquinho, with less of the fruity sweetness, so the dish tips toward sharp instead of sweet-tart. Add a pinch of sugar to the plate or a drizzle of honey to rebalance. Buy the sweet ones deliberately: the hot version is a different ingredient and will surprise people expecting a mild pepper.
3Piquillo peppers, cut into strips
Different texture
Use the same amount by volume
Spanish roasted red peppers, sweet and completely mild, sold in jars.
What changes
Best for
cheese boards, tapas, stuffing, blending into dips and spreads
The sweetness and the total absence of heat are spot on. What you lose is crunch and acidity: piquillos are soft and roasted where biquinho is snappy and pickled, so they read as a silky red pepper rather than a bright little pop. Toss the strips with a teaspoon of white wine vinegar to fake the brine, and accept that the texture is genuinely different.
4Pickled pepperoncini, sliced
Different taste
Use the same amount by volume
Pale green pickled Italian peppers, tangy with a very mild warmth.
What changes
Best for
sandwiches, salads, pizza, anywhere the pepper is a background accent
Widely available and the right level of gentle. But they are green-tasting and distinctly sour rather than sweet, and they lose you the little red teardrop look entirely, so use them where the pepper is mixed in rather than sitting on top of a board. Draining them well and adding a small pinch of sugar helps.
5Quick-pickled grape or cherry tomatoes
Different taste
Use the same amount by volume, halved
Small tomatoes steeped in a sweet-sour brine to mimic the pop and the color.
What changes
Best for
cheese boards, salads, garnish where appearance matters
A real workaround rather than a pepper. Simmer half a cup of white wine vinegar with two tablespoons of sugar and a half teaspoon of salt, pour it hot over the halved tomatoes and leave 30 minutes. You get the same sweet-tart burst and the same red bead on the plate. It tastes tomatoey rather than fruity-pepper, and it goes soft after a day, so make it the same day you serve it.
6Cornichons or gherkins, sliced into rounds
Different taste
Use the same amount by volume
Small pickled cucumbers with a firm snap.
What changes
Best for
charcuterie boards, pate and rillettes, potato and egg salads
This is the least-bad choice when you have no peppers at all. It matches the crunch and the palate-cleansing acid that biquinho contributes next to fatty cured meat, which is really the job it is doing on a board. It is not sweet and not fruity, so the plate tastes sharper and greener. Nobody will mistake it for biquinho, but the board still works.

What is Biquinho Pepper?

Biquinho Pepper is Biquinho peppers, also called pimenta biquinho, little beak peppers or the retail name sweety drop, are tiny teardrop-shaped Brazilian chiles sold pickled in jars, and they are sweet-tart and crunchy with almost no heat.

Cooking tips

Understand what biquinho is actually doing before you swap it. On a charcuterie board or a plate of cheese it is a sweet-tart acid pop with a crisp snap, there to cut fat, not to add heat. Once you know that, you can judge any candidate on two questions: is it sweet-sour, and does it crunch.
Biquinho carries roughly no capsaicin at all, somewhere around zero to 500 on the Scoville scale, so it is one of the few chiles you can pile on a plate for people who dislike spice. If you swap in something hotter, warn whoever is eating, and pull the seeds out of cherry peppers or pepperoncini to keep it gentle.
Drain any jarred substitute well and pat it dry before it touches cheese, bread or a salad. Biquinho comes out of its brine fairly dry; peppadews and cherry peppers carry a lot more liquid and will make a soggy patch.
Do not cook these peppers down. Biquinho is nearly always used raw from the jar, and its whole appeal is the crunch. If you simmer a substitute into a sauce, you have made a sweet pepper sauce, which is a fine thing but no longer this ingredient.
The brine is useful on its own. A spoonful of biquinho or peppadew liquid whisked into a vinaigrette, or splashed over grilled chicken, delivers the sweet-sour note even when you are short on the peppers themselves.

Frequently asked questions

Are sweety drop peppers the same as biquinho?

Yes. Sweety Drop is a retail brand name for the same little teardrop-shaped Brazilian pepper sold as pimenta biquinho in Brazil. If a recipe asks for one and the store has the other, you are buying the identical thing. You may also see them labeled little beak pepper, which is what biquinho means.

Can I just leave them out?

Usually yes. Biquinho is nearly always a garnish or a board component rather than a structural ingredient, so leaving it out costs you a bright sweet-sour accent and a bit of color but breaks nothing. The one thing worth doing in its place is adding some other acidic pickle to the plate, because that pop against rich cheese or cured meat is the point.

Are biquinho peppers spicy?

Barely, if at all. They come from the same species as habaneros but carry almost no capsaicin, so what you taste is fruit and pickle brine with maybe a faint tingle. That is precisely why they are worth seeking out for a mixed crowd, and why swapping in hot cherry peppers or a hot pickled chile changes the dish more than it looks like it should.

Can I use fresh peppers instead of pickled?

Fresh biquinho barely exists in US shops, and a fresh mild pepper like a mini sweet pepper misses the acid that pickling supplies. If fresh is all you have, cut it small and quick-pickle it: hot brine of equal parts vinegar and water with a teaspoon of sugar and a half teaspoon of salt per half cup, poured over the peppers and left 30 minutes. That gets you much closer than raw pepper does.

Where do I find biquinho peppers?

Look for jars labeled Sweety Drop, sweet drop peppers or pimenta biquinho in the olive and antipasto section, at olive bars, at Brazilian grocers, and in specialty and gourmet aisles. They keep for months unopened, so it is worth buying two jars when you do find them.

Related substitutes

More peppers substitutes

Biquinho Pepper substitute

Other biquinho pepper substitutes

2Pickled cherry peppers (sweet, not hot)

3Piquillo peppers, cut into strips

4Pickled pepperoncini, sliced

5Quick-pickled grape or cherry tomatoes

6Cornichons or gherkins, sliced into rounds