Malagueta Pepper substitute

Best substitute

Thai Bird Chiles (Prik Kee Noo)

Use the same amount by count as the malagueta pepper you are replacing

Best for moqueca

Close match

Thai bird chiles are the closest swap, one for one by count. Fresh tabasco peppers or African piri piri peppers are effectively the same chile. If you only have dried cayenne powder, use 1/4 teaspoon per fresh malagueta and add 1/2 teaspoon of white vinegar, because bottled pimenta malagueta brings acid and salt as well as heat, and that acid is the part most people forget to replace.

Other malagueta pepper substitutes

Ranked, with the exact amount to use

2Piri Piri or African Bird's Eye Chiles
Close match
Use the same amount by count
The Portuguese-African chile that Portuguese recipes mean when they say piri piri, and botanically the same thing as malagueta, since the pepper travelled between Brazil, Portugal and Africa along the same trade routes.
What changes
Best for
piri piri sauce, grilled chicken, Portuguese and Mozambican dishes, chile oil
This is not really a substitute so much as the same pepper under a different name. If a recipe offers malagueta or piri piri as alternatives, that is why. Dried piri piri flakes also work: use 1/4 teaspoon per fresh chile.
3Tabasco Peppers or Tabasco Sauce
Taste and texture differ
Use Fresh 1:1 by count; sauce 1 tsp for every fresh chile
Tabasco peppers are the same species as malagueta, and the bottled sauce is chiles fermented with salt and vinegar, which is structurally close to what bottled pimenta malagueta is.
What changes
Best for
replacing bottled pimenta malagueta at the table, moqueca, bean dishes, marinades
The best answer when the recipe calls for the bottled condiment rather than a fresh chile, because it delivers heat, acid and salt together the way the jar does. It is more vinegary and less fruity, so start with less and build. Cut the recipe's salt slightly.
4Cayenne Pepper (Ground) Plus Vinegar
Taste and texture differ
Use ¼ tsp cayenne plus ½ tsp white vinegar for every fresh malagueta
Ground cayenne lands in roughly the right heat range and is in almost every spice rack, and the vinegar rebuilds the acidity that bottled malagueta contributes.
What changes
Best for
stews, beans, sauces, anything simmered
The heat level is right but everything else is missing: no fresh fruity aroma, no crunch, no green top notes. Without the vinegar a moqueca or a pot of beans tastes hot but strangely flat, which is the single most common mistake in this swap. Add the vinegar at the end so it does not cook off.
5Serrano Peppers
Different taste
Use 2 to 3 serranos for every 1 malagueta
A medium-hot fresh green chile, easy to find year round, useful when you want the fresh chile texture and a controllable amount of heat.
What changes
Best for
dishes where you want visible chile, salsas, fresh sauces, cooking for a mixed crowd
Serranos run around 10,000 to 23,000 Scoville units against malagueta's 60,000 plus, so you need two or three to get near the same heat, and even then the flavour is distinctly green and vegetal rather than sharp and fruity. The dish reads fresher and milder. A good choice if you were nervous about the heat anyway.
6Habanero Pepper
Different taste
Use ⅓ of a habanero for every malagueta
A very hot fresh chile with plenty of heat to spare, useful when it is the only fierce chile in the shop.
What changes
Best for
hot sauce, marinades, long-simmered stews
The heat is in the right league but the aroma is unmistakably floral and apricot-like, so a Brazilian dish made with habanero tastes Caribbean instead. Use a small sliver, remove it before serving, and do not let anyone convince you the two are interchangeable in a fresh salsa.

What is Malagueta Pepper?

Malagueta Pepper is The malagueta is a small, thin, tapered Brazilian chile of the same species as tabasco and African bird's eye peppers, rating roughly 60,000 to 100,000 Scoville units, and it is used either fresh or bottled in vinegar as the condiment pimenta malagueta.

Cooking tips

Understand what the jar is doing before you substitute. Bottled pimenta malagueta is chiles packed in vinegar with salt, so it seasons a dish with heat, acid and salt all at once. Swap in a dry chile and you must add roughly 1/2 teaspoon of vinegar and a pinch of salt per chile, or the dish tastes hot but dull.
You can make a very good stand-in for bottled malagueta in five minutes: pack whole Thai bird chiles into a clean jar, cover with plain white vinegar, add 1/4 teaspoon of salt, and keep it in the refrigerator, where it is ready in a day and keeps for months. This is a refrigerator pickle only.
Never adapt a shelf-stable canning, pickling or fermenting recipe by changing the chile, the vinegar or the salt. In those recipes the acidity is a safety control against botulism, not a seasoning choice. Follow a tested recipe exactly and check the National Center for Home Food Preservation at nchfp.uga.edu.
Most of the heat sits in the seeds and the pale inner ribs. Split the chile and scrape those out for a dish that tastes of chile without scorching, or leave them in when the point is the burn.
In moqueca and other coconut and palm oil stews, add half the chile early so the heat spreads through the sauce and the rest in the last two minutes so you keep the bright, fruity aroma on top.

Frequently asked questions

Is malagueta the same as piri piri?

Effectively yes. Malagueta, piri piri, peri peri and African bird's eye are all names for small, very hot chiles in the Capsicum frutescens group that spread between Brazil, Portugal and southern Africa. Brazilian recipes call it malagueta or pimenta malagueta, Portuguese and Mozambican ones call it piri piri, and you can use whichever you find. Confusingly, malagueta pepper is also an old name for grains of paradise, an unrelated West African spice that is not hot at all, so ignore that if a spice shop offers it.

How hot is a malagueta pepper?

Around 60,000 to 100,000 Scoville units, which puts it roughly 20 to 40 times hotter than a jalapeno and in the same range as a Thai bird chile or a tabasco pepper. One small chile is enough to season a pot of beans for four people. If you are cooking for anyone heat-shy, use half a chile, remove the seeds, and take it out of the pot before serving.

Can I just leave the malagueta out?

You can, and the dish will still work, because chile is a seasoning rather than a structural ingredient. What you lose is heat and a fruity top note. If you leave it out of a moqueca or feijoada, add an extra teaspoon of lime juice or vinegar at the end, because the vinegar that comes with bottled malagueta was doing real work brightening a rich, fatty dish. Many Brazilian cooks serve the chile as a table condiment rather than cooking it in, so leaving it out of the pot and offering hot sauce alongside is authentic as well as practical.

What can I use instead of bottled pimenta malagueta?

Tabasco sauce is the closest thing in a normal supermarket, since it is the same species of chile fermented with salt and vinegar. Start with a teaspoon in place of a chopped bottled malagueta and adjust. A homemade jar of Thai bird chiles covered with white vinegar and a pinch of salt, kept in the fridge, is closer still and takes a day. Sriracha and sambal oelek are the wrong shape for this job because they contain sugar and garlic.

Can I use dried chile flakes instead of fresh malagueta?

Yes, for anything cooked. Use about 1/4 teaspoon of hot flakes or ground cayenne per fresh chile and add it early so it hydrates in the liquid. Add 1/2 teaspoon of vinegar at the end to make up for the acid you lost. Dried flakes are a poor choice in a fresh salsa or a raw table sauce, where the crisp texture and green aroma of the fresh chile are half the point.

Related substitutes

More peppers substitutes

Malagueta Pepper substitute

Other malagueta pepper substitutes

2Piri Piri or African Bird's Eye Chiles

3Tabasco Peppers or Tabasco Sauce

4Cayenne Pepper (Ground) Plus Vinegar

5Serrano Peppers

6Habanero Pepper