Aji Panca vs Aji Amarillo, About 40× Apart in Heat

How much hotter is aji amarillo than aji panca?

About 40 times, going by one supplier's specs for its own dried pods and powders. PRODERNA rates its aji amarillo at 30,000 to 50,000 SHU¹ and its aji panca at 500 to 1,500, one of the mildest chiles it sells². The midpoints, 40,000 and 1,000, give the 40×.

The bars do not come close: even the mildest amarillo sits 20 times above the hottest panca (30,000 ÷ 1,500). We found no university or peer-reviewed SHU range for either pepper, so treat the figures as a fair guide to the gap, not a lab verdict. The Bioversity market guide for Peru backs the direction, calling panca's pungency low³.

Because both figures describe dried product from the same company, you compare like with like. In your pot, amarillo is the heat and panca is the color.

How do the two pods differ in the market?

You can tell them apart from across the stall. Amarillo is orange or yellow and sold fresh or dried³; panca is a dark burgundy pod that cooks generally use dried²³.

Aji panca

Heat

500–1,500 SHU, mild and lingering²

Color

Yellowish green, ripening to a dark burgundy red²

Size

8–10 cm long, 3–4 cm across²

Form

Dried on the plant, then in the sun; mostly eaten dried²³

Flavor

Fruity and berry-like, aromatic and smoky²

VS

Aji amarillo

Heat

30,000–50,000 SHU¹

Color

Orange or yellow; turns a dish yellow¹³

Other names

Ají escabeche; dried, it is ají mirasol³

Form

Fresh or dried, also as paste and powder³

Flavor

Tropical and fruity, with a raisin aroma¹

The species question has no clean answer for panca. The Bioversity guide lists amarillo under Capsicum baccatum var. pendulum, but places panca under C. chinense in one table and under C. baccatum in a photo caption³. Barboza's monograph lists "Ají Panca" among C. chinense names⁴, and PRODERNA calls it C. baccatum². For your cooking the heat and color matter far more than the label.

PRODERNA notes that panca looks like amarillo when both are fresh and green², so if you ever find fresh panca at a market abroad, the color at ripeness is your best tell.

Which Peruvian dishes use panca, amarillo or both?

Several of the classics take both. The Bioversity guide lists the dishes each pepper goes into, and chupe, adobo and escabeche appear on both lists³.

Read the table by job. When a dish is yellow and has a kick, like ají de gallina, it is an amarillo dish. When it is deep red and mild, like carapulcra or pachamanca, it is a panca dish. When a recipe for chupe or adobo calls for both, each one is doing a different job, and you need both jars.

PRODERNA's spec sheets fit that split: amarillo for ceviches, salsas, sauces, chicken and seafood¹, panca for gravies and seasonings².

What heat do you get when you blend the two pastes?

You can dial it in by weight. If a paste carries the heat of its pepper, a blend's heat is the weighted average of the two midpoints, 1,000 SHU for panca and 40,000 for amarillo¹². Here is every blend in steps of a quarter:

Notice how quickly the amarillo takes over. A quarter of it already lifts the blend more than ten times above plain panca, so for a mild red adobo you might start at 10 % amarillo (about 4,900 SHU) and taste from there.

Here is a worked pot. Say your chupe recipe asks for 3 tablespoons of panca paste and 1 of amarillo, and your guests want it milder. That 3:1 mix is the 75/25 row, about 10,750 SHU. Drop to 3 tablespoons of panca and half a tablespoon of amarillo and you land near 6,600 SHU (3 × 1,000 + 0.5 × 40,000, divided by 3.5), cutting the heat by about two fifths while the red color stays almost the same, since panca still makes up most of the mix. The estimate assumes your two pastes weigh about the same per spoon, so weigh them once if you want to be exact.

Why can't you swap aji panca for aji amarillo?

Because each one takes away what the other gives. A straight swap changes either the heat or the color of the dish by a lot:

If your shop has only one of the two, look for a stand-in that copies the missing job rather than the other aji. For panca's color and mild heat, a dried red chile does better than amarillo; for amarillo's heat and yellow, a hotter yellow or orange pepper does better than panca. The aji limo against the amarillo looks at the other Peruvian pepper you may find beside them, the one Bioversity says cooks use for hot sauces³.

Which of the two do Lima households buy more?

Amarillo, but panca is close behind, and the numbers explain why you see one jar far more often than the other. In the household survey the Bioversity guide reports, 89 % of Lima respondents ate aji amarillo and 75 % ate aji panca³.

Supermarket sales lean harder toward amarillo: at one Lima chain, it made up 95.2 % of native aji sales between August and October 2010³. That pattern carries abroad. You will usually find amarillo paste in more shops than panca paste, so buy panca when you see it.

The same guide names the rocoto as the hottest of Peru's commercial ajíes³. If your recipe lists rocoto as well, it adds heat that neither of these two can match.

Which jars and bags should you look for?

Look for the same forms under both names. The Bioversity guide's survey of Lima supermarkets lists pastes, ground pepper and dried pods for both ajíes, from several Peruvian makers³:

Read the label for the word mirasol. A jar or bag of "ají mirasol" holds the dried amarillo³, which keeps the heat and loses the fresh pod's water, so you need less of it by weight. A bag of panca powder, on the other hand, is simply the dried pod ground², with the same mild heat.

If you cook Peruvian food often, a jar of each paste and a bag of each powder cover almost every recipe. The pastes give you color and body in a stew; the powders let you season a rub or a dry marinade without adding water.

How do you bring out the flavor of each pepper?

Treat them as the different products they are. PRODERNA suggests roasting or baking dried amarillo over low heat to bring out its natural oils¹. Panca reaches you already dried twice, first on the plant and then in the sun², which is where its smoky, berry-like note comes from in the supplier's description.

For a stew that uses both, one simple order of work keeps each pepper in its job: soften the panca paste in oil first for the color, then add the amarillo with the liquid so you can taste and stop when the heat is right. Because amarillo carries about 40 times the heat¹², adding it last gives you the control.

How do you keep a jar of either paste from spoiling?

Treat a homemade paste like any chile purée. NMSU says to refrigerate leftover purée promptly and to use or freeze it within 3 days⁵, and to skip any dried pod with mold, insects or decay before you soak it⁵.

If you make panca paste from dried pods, the soak is the same as for other dried red chiles: cover stemmed, seeded pods with boiling water for 30 minutes, blend with fresh hot water, then simmer 10 minutes⁵. For fresh amarillo, wear rubber gloves while you seed the pods and keep your hands away from your eyes⁶. At 30,000 SHU and up, it sits right in the cayenne band of 25,000 to 50,000⁷, so handle it the same way.

Your next step: decide which job your dish needs (heat, color or both), pick a row in the blend table, and test a teaspoon of each paste before you fill the pot. If a recipe also calls for the small, hot Peruvian aji limo, weigh it against amarillo first, since Bioversity groups it with the peppers for spicy sauces³.