9 Restaurant-Worthy Shishito Pepper Recipes That You Can Make at Home

While the chef behind this recipe, Ryan Smith, makes his own furikake (a Japanese spice blend), this dish is simplified with the addition of a store-bought blend.

Chef Justin Yu’s blistered shishitos go well with pretty much anything, as does the garlic-herb oil dressing. Peppers aside, this mixture is great on salads, chicken, and even pasta.

Michael Voltaggio uses bonito sand to provide depth of flavor to his shishito peppers. What’s bonito sand? A food-processed combination of bonito flakes, almond flour, sugar, and butter.

This dish is aptly named, as chef George Chen of China Live sears shishito peppers with pieces of steak that are intended to be the size of mah-jongg tiles.

Chef Eli Kulp’s shishito peppers romesco is packed with heat and acid, which acts as the perfect dressing to simply prepared vegetables. In this case, Kulp chooses grilled leeks, but most seasonal vegetables will work well with the romesco.

Skewering chicken meatballs and shishito peppers on the same stick is key here, as the meat flavors the vegetables and the peppers in turn provide a zestiness to the chicken.

In this recipe, chef Sang Yoon combines two classic Japanese dishes, donburi and kakuni, to create a hybrid made of pork and egg served with rice and garnished with tasty pickled shishitos.

Though cookbook author Nancy Singleton Hachisu is originally from California, she has lived in Japan since 1988 and has since become an expert in the varied cuisines within the country. While shishito peppers are often eaten raw in Japan during the summer, this version is beautifully blistered.

The ultimate accompaniments to spicy shishito peppers? Chef Dave Beran’s skirt steak and lemony salad, complete with blue cheese and mint.