Whether you call these dried chiles, dried peppers, or dried chili peppers, these are the stuff of magic. From the exclusivity of being a chilehead and torturing yourself with the hottest of hot chiles to the joy of watching someone eat a chile for the first time, you are engulfed in a new, hotter world once you have got a hankering for these. Chiles are believed to be indigenous to the Andean region of Bolivia, Ecuador, and Peru dating back more than 10,000 years. They were a key ingredient in the diets of the Mayans and the Aztecs and have since become a staple in diets from around the world.

If you are really into chiles, you desire not only the delightful heat, but also the unique flavors of the different chiles all around the world. Chiles can be used to add color, flavor, visual appeal, and of course heat to many cuisines. They are especially popular in the United States, the Asian Islands, the Caribbean, the Mediterranean, Mexico, South America, and in Southeast Asia.

Dried chile peppers have many different flavors, ranging from earthy, floral, fruity, hot, smoky, and sweet. They come in a variety of colors, shapes, and sizes, and there are more than 3,000 known varieties around the world. There are five species within the Capsicum (C.) genus, but the two that produce the most popular chiles are Capsicum annum which tend to be larger and have more complex flavors and Capsicum frutescens which tend to be smaller, with simpler flavors and more heat. The heat of all chiles is found inside of their innards and seeds, so it can be lessened by their removal if desired.

With all of this talk about chiles, you are probably curious about chile powder versus chili powder. Chili powders are a Tex-Mex style seasoning blend that is typically made with cumin, chile powder, garlic, and oregano. Chile powders are ground chiles and nothing else. The distinction between the two is easy to remember if you think about chili being a stew of many ingredients and a chile being a single pod.

If you want complex flavors provided by the chiles, you want to look for food from the Southwestern United States, Mexico, and South America. Chefs in these regions utilize both the heat and the background flavors of the chiles to make their dishes as flavorful and rich as possible. If you are looking to have your face blown off from the pure heat a chile can give, look to the cuisines of Africa, Asia, and India, where heat is even more important that the underlying flavors of the chile.

We aim to deliver the largest variety of top quality dried chiles, chile flakes, and chile powders to our customers. It helps that we are firmly entrenched in the chilehead culture ourselves, so we know what to look for, especially since we are always looking to expand!

What’s the Difference Between “Dried Chile Peppers” and “Dried Chili Peppers”?

There is no difference between “dried chile peppers” and “dried chili peppers,” it’s just a matter of preference of spelling. For continuity, our website utilizes the spelling “chile” across the board when we are talking about anything that comes from the Capsicum family. This is not the case as you venture through the internet however, as the spelling “chile” or “chili” tend to be interchanged all over the place. It’s typically easy to figure out what chile each instance is referring to through context clues. For us, we only use the word “chili” to talk about the stew, not the chile pepper. As if this weren’t already confusing enough, chiles are sometimes simply referred to as peppers when they aren’t related to peppercorns at all. Semantics!

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