Chili powder
dried, pulverized fruit of one or more varieties of chili pepper
Chili powder (also spelled chile, chilli, or, alternatively, powdered chili) is the dried, pulverized fruit of one or more varieties of chili pepper, sometimes with the addition of other spices (in which case it is also sometimes known as chili powder blend or chili seasoning mix). It is used as a spice (or spice blend) to add pungency (piquancy) and flavor to culinary dishes. In American English, the spelling is usually "chili"; In British English, "chilli" (with two "l"s) is used consistently.
Chili powder is used in many different cuisines, including American (particularly Tex-Mex), Chinese, Indian, Sri Lankan, Bangladeshi, Mexican, Nigerian, Portuguese, Vietnamese and Thai.
Varieties
Chili powder is sometimes known by the specific type of chili pepper used. Varieties of chili peppers used to make chili powder include Aleppo, ancho, cayenne, chipotle, chile de árbol, jalapeño, New Mexico, pasilla, and piri piri chili peppers. Gochugaru is a variety used in Korean cuisine traditionally made from sun-dried Korean red chili peppers known as taeyang-cho, with spicier varieties using Cheongyang peppers. Ata gun gun powder is widely used in Yoruba cuisine. Kashmiri chili powder is bright red, but mild in heat and used in Indian cuisine, named after the region of Kashmir.
Blends
Chili powder blends are composed chiefly of chili peppers and blended with other spices including cumin, onion, garlic powder, and sometimes salt.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Chili powder” as dried, pulverized fruit of one or more varieties of chili pepper. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1072946. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Chili powder” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.