People in Asian countries, where chili peppers are used much more extensively than in the West, do not remove the seeds from their hot chilis. This practice is something we are taught to do in the West, mostly in English-speaking countries, and Australia. I’ve already written about whether the heat in chilis is found in the seeds, but this doesn’t answer the question of whether you should remove the seeds when cooking with them.
Many Asians are shocked at the practice and find it ridiculous. I’ve even heard one YouTuber say you are throwing away flavor! Is this true?
Can You Eat the Seeds in Peppers?
Yes. You can certainly eat the seeds in chili peppers. They are not toxic in any way. You may well detect them in a dish and find it annoying to have small hard seeds in a dish, especially when they lodge between your teeth.
Why Remove Chili Seeds?
By removing chili pepper seeds and the membranes that house them, you are removing some of the heat of the chili pepper. However, the only flavor seeds have, if you could detect it through the heat, are bitter flavors.
No, you are not sacrificing flavor by removing seeds and membranes. In fact, most of the herbaceous and fruity flavors of a chili are found in the flesh of the fruit, not the seed housing. Test this yourself by tasting the whitish membranes inside a sweet green or red pepper.
Remove the Seeds for MORE FLAVOR
So, if you remove chili seeds you can use more chilis for the same amount of heat, and get more of the chili peppers’ unique flavor.
Another reason you may want to remove seeds is that they can ruin the look of a finished dish. If you are making a dish with a lot of liquid, it will float around and look terrible. And if you want a very smooth finished product, the seeds may interfere with the final texture. Even in restaurants in Asia, chefs are likely to remove seeds for any of these reasons.
Why Do Asian Cooks Keep the Seeds?
However, Asian cooks still decry the practice and some seem to be outright passionate in their opposition. Here are some of the things food writer Rachel Bartholomeusz, whose family is Sri Lankan, had to say. I think that these views are representative of some basic reasons for this reaction:
Recipes that call for chillies* to be deseeded…are assuming that liking chilli is the exception. That you probably don’t like spicy food…that you don’t like the look of the seeds in the final product…
And from this stems the ridiculous logic of using multiple, deseeded chillies, something I’ve never understood. More effort and more chillies required to achieve any decent level of heat. 1
The same writer stated that you are removing MOST of the heat if you remove the seeds and membranes (placenta) and that only a small amount of heat will seep through.
Your perception of heat will depend on your tolerance for it, but this is generally untrue. There is still plenty of heat left in a chili and the hottest chilis would still burn your britches off, even if you removed the seeds. And, again, if you add more chilis, you’ll get more capsaicin, and thus more heat.
The Asian tradition of not removing the seeds is just that, a tradition. My research has not revealed any credible reasons to keep the seeds in except MORE HEAT.
Some Asian chefs, though, act like that without the seeds a chili isn’t even a chili. Still, there are some other traditional reasons, themselves not based on science.
In the same article mentioned above, an Indian chef named Ajoy Joshi, of Sydney, said that while growing up in India, he was taught that the seeds were the most important part and that they contain vitamin C and help produce saliva. Most of the vitamins and minerals of a chili are found in the flesh and skin, not in the seeds. 1
Yes, chili peppers can be a good source of vitamin C whether or not you remove the seeds, but as much as 50 percent of this vitamin will be lost in cooking, depending on the cooking method and the level of heat.
In high-heat Asian-style wok cooking, more may be lost. As far as saliva, if you cannot produce saliva without chili seeds, you have a medical issue and should consult a doctor.
But finally, an actual spice expert, Ian Hembphill, reveals what I’ve already said, that deseeding a chili (chili) is about adding flavor, not getting rid of heat:
“The flavour is mostly in the flesh of the chilli,” he says, suggesting the seeds don’t really add much in that respect, “maybe a slight bitterness.” 1
Again, there seems to be a persistent belief, though, that most of the capsaicin is found in the seeds. As I revealed in the article I linked at the beginning, there is no capsaicin in the seeds. More of the chemical, however, is concentrated in the placenta, the membrane or pith, that surrounds the seeds.
A clean pepper seed will not be hot but a pepper seed fresh from the fruit will be hot because it is coated with capsaicin-containing material.
The membranes or placenta is also where the bitter taste comes from. From a practical standpoint, to remove the membrane, you must remove a lot of the seeds, if not all of them. Unless you don’t have enough chili peppers on hand, it’s not a big sacrifice.
Again, there is still plenty of heat in the flesh, although the heat of the flesh will vary from chili pepper to chili pepper. All you have to do is taste a deseeded, but otherwise very hot chili, to see that this is true.
No, it is a myth that all the heat from chili peppers is contained in the
seeds or the ribs.
So, Should You Remove the Seeds from Chilis?
It is entirely up to you. If you want to get more heat from fewer chili peppers and want to skip the extra work of deseeding and chopping more peppers, then keep the seeds. The slight bitter flavor from the placenta is not likely to ruin your dish.
If you want more of the unique flavor from the chilis you use without making your dish so hot it blows the top of your head off, deseed your chilis, and use more of them. And, if you just want a little chili and less heat in general, deseed, as well.
Also, you may be concerned with how the seeds will impact the look of your dish.
There are no universal reasons to abstain from deseeding a chili or for removing the seeds. As always, it is up to you and subject to your intentions for the final dish.
*Chilli and chillies for plural are the common British spelling.
You May Be Interested in These Articles
- Bartholomeusz, Rachel. “The Burning Question: Do You Deseed Chillies?” SBS.com, SBS, 19 Apr. 2016, www.sbs.com.au/food/article/2016/04/19/burning-question-do-you-deseed-chillies.