Where In The US The Most Chile Peppers Are Grown (It's Not California)

Due to a multitude of factors, including its size and its victory in the geographic lottery, California grows more crops than any other state. In fact, there are a number of crops, including olives and raisins, which are only grown in California (in the United States, at least). It's to the point where it's almost more noteworthy when California doesn't grow the most of a given crop. Pennsylvania has it beat for mushrooms, but New Mexico is the American chile pepper king. (When it comes to Red Hot Chili Peppers, however, California still reigns supreme.)

You may know New Mexico as the setting for the "Breaking Bad" universe, the birthplace of the atomic bomb, and the place where some guy maybe saw a UFO one time. (If nothing else, there's a UFO-shaped McDonald's in Roswell.) It's also where over three-quarters of the country's chile peppers are grown. 77% of all American chiles are grown in New Mexico, with the vast majority being green chiles. Some of the other chile-growing states include Arizona, Texas, and (yes, indeed) California, but none of them are hitting New Mexico's numbers.

It makes perfect sense that New Mexico is a chile-growing hotspot. These fruits (and yes, they are fruits not vegetables) grow best in warm, sunny climates like Mexico, where they originated. The chile pepper was introduced to the area we now call New Mexico in the late 16th century by a conquistador named Don Juan Onate, who brought them up from Mexico and introduced them to the indigenous Pueblo population.

Today, New Mexican peppers are known around the world for their high quality. One particularly popular pepper (say that three times fast) is the Hatch chile, a cultivar of pepper named after the Hatch Valley near the Rio Grande. These smoky, pungent peppers come in varying degrees of spiciness, from 0 on the Scoville scale (not spicy at all, equivalent to a bell pepper) to 100,000 (as hot as some types of habanero peppers). However hot they are, though, they're absolutely delicious; to the point where Hatch chiles have a certification label to ensure that they are, in fact, grown in New Mexico.