The Difference Between Red, Yellow & Green Bell Peppers

Ever wonder why green bell peppers taste so much different than red or yellow? An even more important question, why are red bell peppers so much more expensive? We use bell peppers in quite a few of our meals (stuffed bell peppers, loaded sweet potatoes, & veggie stuffed quesadillas to name a few) but we also love to eat them sliced with hummus or on our pizza. Bell peppers are a go-to veggie in this household, but I’ve always been curious - why do they all taste so different?

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Here’s the crazy part - different colored bell peppers are not actually different vegetables. Depending on when they were picked determines what color they will have. Green is the least ripe pepper. It is known for its mildly bitter and earthy flavor. They’re also the cheapest because it doesn’t take as long before you can harvest them, since they are essentially unripe.

Similarly to a stop light the yellow bell pepper is in the middle of the ripeness scale. It has a mild sweet taste. Red peppers, as we know, are very sweet. This is because they are fully ripened.

As peppers ripen they also change nutritional value. Green peppers only have about half the amount of vitamin C as the yellow and red ones do. This value of vitamin C increases as the pepper ripens. We definitely aren’t saying that green bell peppers are unhealthy, they just aren’t as healthy as the other ones.

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No matter how you eat them, bell peppers are delicious. They’re perfect for roasting, grilling, stuffing with your favorite meats and cheeses, or for just chomping on raw.