Nigeria is the most populous nation in Africa with a population of more than 230 million. In the world, Nigeria is known as the sixth most populous country in the world.

Also, Nigeria is a home to over 300 (three hundred) tribes with diverse food preferences and dishes.

Despite the socio-cultural diversity of Nigerians, the use of peppers is an integral part of the Nigerian cuisine.

Peppers are widely used in cooking Nigerian foods, but there must be a clear understanding of the different types of peppers.

This is because, different peppers have their uniqueness and using them properly to cook delicious meals entails learning them.

Types of peppers and their uses.

The three major types are peppers that are used when preparing Nigerian foods are listed below.

• Bell pepper
• Scotch bonnet pepper
• Cayenne peppers

Now, I will proceed to write about the unique qualities of these peppers as well as their uses.

Bell pepper

Bell peppers are generally called ‘tatashe’ and they have different colours. We have green bell peppers, red bell peppers, orange bell peppers and yellow bell peppers.

When cooking Nigerian foods, the red bell pepper and green bell peppers are the most commonly used.

The red ones are usually used for cooking stews, soups and wide variety of dishes. It also acts as a thickener.

Green bell peppers are typically used as garnish when cooking rice dishes – such as fried rice, vegetable rice – and some sauces.

Scotch bonnet pepper

This types of pepper is smaller than bell peppers and it is available in red or green colour.

It is called ‘ata rodo’. Green Ata rodo is an important ingredient for cooking ofada sauce while the red one is used to cooking stews and soups.

When adding this pepper to your meals you must exercise caution especially if you don’t like spicy foods.

In fact it is generally believed that the smaller the pepper, the spicier it is.

Red long pepper

Some people call this pepper cayenne pepper while others call it red long pepper.

In Nigerian markets, this pepper is sold in green colour which is its unripe state or ripe and red.

It is usually known as bawa or shombo.

Shombo is known for the rich red colour which it add to food. This is the reason why it is a major ingredient for jollof rice .

This pepper is not spicy instead it is adds a sweet taste to food.

In summary, bell peppers acts as a thickener, scotch bonnet peppers are spicy and red long peppers add a delicious taste and colour to food.

To this end, I hope that this blog post has been educational enough to help you with knowing how to use the different types of peppers in order to be able to achieve you preferred taste when cooking Nigerian foods.

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