Ghost Pepper

Ghost pepper, also sold as Bhut Jolokia, is a Capsicum chinense superhot from northeastern India, especially Assam. The two names refer to the same chilli. I have grown it in my garden, including in a pot in 2025, and I find it very hot. I use it in my homemade chilli seasoning, a chilli powder blend. In 2024 I was still picking ripe red pods in early November, next to orange and chocolate habaneros. Listings commonly give a very high heat range; those figures are reported estimates, not a lab measurement of fruit from this garden.

Appearance

The ripe pods are usually wrinkled and pointed, and most often red, though orange, yellow and brown types are also sold. In 2025 the plant in its pot reached a similar height to my other varieties. Orange types are covered separately on Bhut Jolokia Orange. Naga Morich is a close relative from the same part of the world, not the same cultivar; see Naga Morich Chilli Pepper.

Heat

How hot is a ghost pepper? In my garden I find it very hot, so a little goes a long way, and gloves are a good idea when you cut it. Listings commonly give a range of about 800,000 to over 1,000,000 Scoville Heat Units (SHU). That figure is widely published, including on WikiPepper, and it is a reported range, not a lab measurement of fruit from this garden. Ghost pepper was for a time among the hottest chillies in the world; it has since been passed by varieties such as Carolina Reaper and Pepper X.

What you can expect:

• very hot in this garden
• a reported range of about 800,000-1,000,000 SHU
• heat varies with the plant and how it was grown

More on the scale, and on later record holders, is on the Scoville Scale page and in The Hottest Chilli Pepper Since 2023.

Growing

I grew ghost pepper in a pot in 2025. The plant was a similar height to my other varieties. Like other Capsicum chinense, it needs a long, warm season. In this garden, ripe red pods were still there for the last harvest of early November 2024, so it is not a short-season chilli here. Start early, give the plant sun and warmth, and handle the fruit with gloves. I do not have a record of how quickly the seed germinated, or of the yield, so I will not invent those figures.

Useful growing notes:

• grown in a pot in 2025 in this garden
• height similar to my other varieties
• long season, with ripe fruit still in early November 2024
• handle pods with gloves

General seed-starting notes are in the guide to growing chilli from seed. The months of the 2024 season are in my Garden Diary 2024.

Culinary uses

I find it very hot, so I do not eat it raw in quantity. I use it in my homemade chilli seasoning, a chilli powder blend. Ripe red pods from the 2024 harvest also went into that year’s chilli powder, and into drying. See Chilli Powder from the 2024 Harvest and Harvesting and Drying Hot Peppers.

Popular uses include:

• homemade chilli seasoning and chilli powder blends
• drying

Sources & review notes

Last reviewed: 13 November 2026. We checked reported heat, names and origin against the sources below.

Uncertainty: the 800,000-1,000,000 SHU range is widely published, but it is not a lab measurement of fruit from this garden, and actual heat varies. I do not have a record of germination time or yield, so those are not stated here.