What is the difference between cayenne pepper, chilli powder, and paprika powder? They seem pretty similar. Are they interchangeable in recipes? Will it be a big difference if I substitute one for another?
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cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/16076/…– Stephie ♦Commented Oct 22, 2018 at 14:16
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I regularly make chili (the stew) using paprika, cumin, oregano, and garlic for the seasonings. It tastes different from the canned stuff, but this is primarily due to different salt and heat levels, not to the specific cultivar of capsicum annuum. I could achieve something very like a restaurant chili if I added more salt and used a hot paprika instead of sweet.– JPmiaouCommented Oct 24, 2018 at 16:47
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3 Answers
Cayenne pepper powder comes from the cayenne pepper. It is hot/spicy, registering 30,000 to 50,000 Scoville units.
Chilli powder, depending where you live, can mean anything between pure powdered chilli pepper (location would determine the specific type of pepper) to a spice blend of chillies with cumin, oregano, and/or other spices. Depending on the brand (or if you make it yourself) the heat and flavor can vary.
Paprika is the dried and ground pepper capsicum annuum, the species of pepper that includes a wide variety of shapes and sizes, such as sweet bell pepper, jalapeno, New Mexico chili and cayenne. It appears that the tomato pepper is the most commonly used variety for the production of paprika. Of course, there are also smoked varieties (sweet, bittersweet, and hot).
I would say that they are generally not interchangeable. Just a little bit of cayenne, for example, will bring quite a bit of heat to your final dish. Chili powder will bring more flavor/spices than paprika.
It really depends on the final result you are looking for, but simple substitutions will result in very different outcomes.
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3Comments are not for extended discussion; this hot debate has been moved to chat.– Stephie ♦Commented Oct 22, 2018 at 14:19
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3The moved comments were mostly a discussion about whether chilli powder in the UK is/was/is understood to be just powdered chilli or a spice blend containing other things too. I've posted a question to try to clear this up: Chilli powder in the UK. Commented Oct 22, 2018 at 15:10
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2Most of the peppers for paprika that I see available to home gardeners aren't bell peppers, but they're still sweet (or nearly sweet). Commented Oct 23, 2018 at 2:15
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3Uh, yeah, absolutely nobody makes paprika out of bell peppers.– MartiCommented Oct 23, 2018 at 15:26
They give a similar range of flavours, but in quite different proportions. They’re all made from ground roasted or dried red peppers of some kind, so all of them involve some amounts of spiciness (chilli heat), fruitiness, earthiness, and other aspects of the flavour of roasted peppers. Cayenne typically has much more of the hotter and sharper flavours among these. Paprika typically is much less hot, and more fruity and earthy (though there’s a wide range of varieties of paprika). A very wide range of different styles are sold as “chilli powder” depending where you are, but typically they’re quite hot and a bit earthy, less sweet than paprika and less sharp than cayenne.
(“Chilli powder” can also mean a spice blend from Mexican/US cooking, which besides pure chilli powder may typically contain cumin, dried onion/garlic, oregano, salt, and other herbs/spices. I’m assuming that you’re talking about pure chilli powder, not the blend.)
Since they have such closely related flavour profiles, you can usefully exchange them for each other in many recipes — it will change the result a bit, but will usually still work well. E.g. if a recipe calls for cayenne but if you or your guests don’t like too much chilli heat, you can subsitute paprika to reduce the heat without losing the other aspects of the pepper flavour.
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1Upvoted, great answer. I think it is worth elaborating on what one can do with the wide variation in brands/species/regions of chilli powder, as well as smoked varieties. So, it could be useful to sniff and taste a variety of products, labeling them appropriately for use in your recipes. Commented Oct 21, 2018 at 18:57
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2You do not roast peppers for making paprika. You dry them, not cook them.– MartiCommented Oct 23, 2018 at 15:28
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I like to note that there is a different spelling in American English for this- chili (one L), which in my experience is the name of a bean-based stew, and the name given to a powdered blend of spices that usually includes, but is not completely made up of powdered capsicum that is called 'chilli' in UK English. Commented Oct 24, 2018 at 15:22
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@JenniferS: The spelling difference is good to note, but in my experience it’s just US vs UK difference, not specifically about the stew/spice distinction. That is, in the US, chili (one L) is the most widely used spelling for everything — the stew, the spice blend, the pure ground spice, the original fruit — while similarly in the UK, chilli is the main spelling for all of them.– PLLCommented Oct 25, 2018 at 7:42
Chili Powder and Ground Chili Peppers are two different things. Chili Powder has other spices, and a variety of peppers in it. Ground Chili Peppers should say on the labeling what kind of peppers are used i.e. "Ground Ancho Chili", or "Ground New Mexico Chili". For a mild heat and warm-sweet flavor, I prefer the New Mexico variety.
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1As other answers already described, “chili powder” can mean any of a few things, not just the definition you’ve given. Make sure not to focus only on local customs!– SneftelCommented Aug 1 at 19:08