Tennessee Cheese Pepper
The Tennessee Cheese Pepper is a sweet heirloom Capsicum annuum cultivar known for its thick-walled, tomato- or apple-shaped fruits that ripen from green to vibrant red. It delivers a candy-like sweetness with zero heat and excels in stuffing, pickling, and paprika production.
The Tennessee Cheese Pepper, also known as Cheese Red, is an open-pollinated heirloom variety originally from Spain but preserved by a family in Kingston, Tennessee. Plants produce good yields of upright, apple- or tomato-shaped peppers with very thick flesh and walls. Fruits measure approximately 3 inches long or 76-102 mm in diameter, starting green and maturing to rich red. The flavor is exceptionally sweet with a candy-like taste, making them addictive when eaten fresh. They are excellent for stuffing due to their shape and thick walls, as well as for pickling, fresh salads, cooking, and drying into high-quality paprika. The compact plants grow 18 to 36 inches tall, mature in 60-90 days from transplant, and thrive in full sun with fertile, well-drained soil. This non-GMO variety is suitable for garden plots, raised beds, and greenhouses.
Gallery
No photos of Tennessee Cheese Pepper here yet. Got one? Share it with us.
Backstory
An heirloom variety preserved by a family in Kingston, Tennessee, originally introduced from Spain where similar peppers are traditional staples in many dishes.
Promoted products
Promote a product tied to Tennessee Cheese Pepper? This slot is open.
Reach out →Flavor
Exceptionally sweet with a candy-like taste and no heat.
Culinary uses
Q&A
Substitutions
Appearance
Growing
Origin detail
Tags
Sources
Huge shout-out to the breeders, growers, researchers, and seed savers linked below — their independent work is what lets us fact-check our own. Go visit them.
These references are used to verify what we publish — not as the source of the content itself. Seed catalogs, breeder pages, research papers, and cultivar databases let us cross-check every fact before it lands here. Open any card to read the original or dig deeper.
- reimerseeds.comReimer Seeds Tennessee Cheese Pepper Seeds page
- trueleafmarket.comTrue Leaf Market Sweet Tennessee Cheese Pepper Seeds
- vinlandvalleynursery.comVinland Valley Nursery Tennessee Cheese pepper description
- cucurbitbreeding.wordpress.ncsu.eduNCSU Vegetable Cultivar Descriptions: Tennessee Cheese