If green peppercorns have turned up in a recipe or caught your eye at the store, here's what you need to use them with confidence and how to choose them, cook them, store them, what to substitute, and 31 recipes to try them in.

What are green peppercorns?

Green peppercorns are the same berry as black pepper, picked young and underripe. Instead of being dried until hard and dark, they are preserved soft, usually packed in brine or vinegar, sometimes freeze-dried or sun-dried with their green color kept.

The flavor is pepper without the bark. It is fresh and a little fruity, with a milder, rounder heat than the sharp bite of black peppercorns. Brined ones are soft enough to crush between your fingers and carry a pickled tang on top.

They come from Piper nigrum, the same vine behind black and white and red peppercorns, which are just different stages of ripeness and processing.

How to Use Green Peppercorns

Their home is creamy sauces. Whole or lightly crushed, they stud a pan sauce with little bursts of warm pepper that black pepper cannot give you. This is the heart of a steak au poivre and the green peppercorn sauce served over steak and game.

Crush them lightly with the flat of a knife so each one pops in the mouth. Then simmer them into a sauce built from cream, brandy, and the pan drippings.

They carry Chicken with Peppercorn Sauce and the rich gravy in a Kangaroo Pepper Steak, and they finish fish beautifully in Red Snapper with Green Peppercorn Sauce.

Brined green peppercorns also fold into pates and terrines, like a Peppered Farmhouse Pate, where their pop and tang break up the richness. A few scattered into a salad dressing or a soft cheese spread add gentle heat and pickled brightness.

Drain brined peppercorns before using, but keep a spoon of the brine to season the sauce.

Pairing and Common Mistakes

Green peppercorns love cream, butter, brandy, mustard, and rich proteins like steak, duck, venison, and salmon. The fat in the dish is exactly what their bright, mild heat is built to cut.

The common mistake is treating them like black pepper and overdoing it. Their flavor is gentler and more perfumed, so a sauce wants a generous spoonful of whole berries, not a heavy grind.

Tip them in whole or barely crushed. Grind them to powder and you lose the pop that is the whole point.

The other slip is rinsing away all the brine and then under-salting. Taste before you add salt, because the peppercorns and their liquid already carry some.

Substitutes

The closest swap is brined green peppercorns for dried, or the reverse: soak dried ones in warm water for ten minutes to soften, then use the same amount.

If you have neither, coarsely crushed black peppercorns give you the heat and a similar look, though the flavor is sharper and more woody and you lose the fruity tang. Use a little less, since black pepper bites harder.

Pink peppercorns bring color and a sweet, mild pop and can stand in where you mainly want the burst rather than true pepper flavor. For a sauce, crushed black pepper with a small splash of caper brine mimics the tangy, briny note reasonably well.

Buying and Storing

Brined green peppercorns come in small jars or cans. Look for plump, intact berries in clear brine, not a mush. They are the most common and most useful form for sauces.

Once opened, keep the jar in the fridge. Submerged in their brine, they stay good for several months, and longer still if you top up with a little vinegar when the level drops. Toss them if the brine turns cloudy or the berries go slimy.

Dried or freeze-dried green peppercorns store airtight in a cool, dark cupboard and hold their flavor for about a year, the same as any whole pepper. Buy them whole and crush as needed, since ground pepper of any kind fades fast.

Quick facts

Where to find green peppercorns: Green peppercorns are usually found in the spices section or aisle of the grocery store or supermarket.

In Chinese

绿胡椒

British (UK) term

Green peppercorns

en français

poivre vert

en español

granos de pimienta verde

Recipes using green peppercorns

There are 31 recipes that contain this ingredient.

All 31 recipes