Chili powder has 3 dimensions
For the love of god, optimize your pantry
Ok nerds, listen up. There’s a lot of confusion out there about adding chili to stuff, and lots of recommendations about different kinds of chilies to buy. There’s a whole chili world out there and recipes tell you to buy specific kinds of chili powder for different niche dishes in different cuisines. It’s just too much.
I think, basically, all dried chilies lie somewhere on 3 dimensions and you can get the same profile by mixing and matching others together.
The dimensions and basic chilies to buy are
Hotness: the hottest cayenne pepper you can find
Flavor: Paprika
Color: Kashmiri chili powder
The strat here is to buy one kind of chili powder for each dimension, then mix as desired.
This means there are certain chili powders you should not buy. E.g. hot paprika, gochugaru, and chili flakes are not necessary. Why do hot paprika when you can just do regular paprika and mix in cayenne?
Also, make sure you’re smelling and tasting them. Spice powders lose pungency along all dimensions over time, and if they’re not contributing their dimension it’s time to replace them. At the very least restock once per year.
1. Heat: cayenne pepper
Cayenne pepper is an industry convention for heat level of chili powder. It is not a type of chili, though many are confused about this. It just means any chili powder in the 30k to 50k scoville range. (Actually technically there is a type of chili called cayenne chili but that has nothing to do with the powdered stuff.)
That said, the point of this powder is literally to just add heat to your dish. The hotter the better. I just went to my local Indian supermarket and asked for the hottest thing they had, and I got something marked “extra spicy chili powder”.
If I wasn’t a coward, I would actually recommend that you buy straight powdered capsaicin (the spicy chemical in chili). But that requires gloves and a respirator to handle so that should be avoided.
2. Flavor: paprika
Good paprika is delicious and deep and fruity. It is made from dried chilies that are basically bell peppers (capsicums) that have been bred for maximum flavor. It gets you the flavor of chili powder but without the heat. You can add as much paprika as you like without dying.
Flavor will be the first thing to go flat while keeping your spices in storage. Make sure you’re always giving it a whiff and checking that it smells delicious.
3. Color: Kashmiri chili powder
Sometimes dishes are delicious because they are really red. Korean food always looks very spicy because gochugaru is generally low-spice and high-color. You should have a powder like this on hand to increase the look of deliciousness.
Apparently the best for this is a type called Byadgi chili. But Kashmiri chili is great. Also a low-spice gochugaru could be fine, although that’s not usually ground as fine. Just pick one and use that.
Extensions if you really need it
Smoked paprika. Very delicious spice, but it can honestly be hard to find a good one that doesn’t taste like sawdust. It is acceptable to buy and use this, but maybe just do regular paprika and liquid smoke?
Chili flakes. I am against chili flakes. It’s just worse flavorwise than chili powder because you’re also eating the seeds which are pretty useless. Basically the only time to use this is when you like the actual look of chili flakes. E.g. they look nice on a simple garlic spaghetti, the red pops. But I’m not eating spaghetti that often.
Literally everything else. A lot of Mexican cooking will focus on a specific type or blend of chilies. I know very little about this, and when cooking that way you should defer to the experts. Then every chili type has its own distinct flavor. But for us mere mortals, and in anything where chili isn’t the star of the show, combining the others is absolutely fine.