Matt Bray 
What are Peppadew® Piquantè Peppers? A little bit sweet, a little bit spicy, and quite a bit of pickled tang are the hallmarks of your typical PEPPADEW® Piquantè Pepper. It’s a unique flavor – so unique, in fact, that the growers have trademarked the name. Peppadew® …
Cocktail sauce already has heat in it. The horseradish sees to that. What Tabasco adds is a second kind of burn on top of the first, which is more interesting than just making the sauce hotter. Six ingredients, one bowl, five minutes of work. Then …
The lovely cascabel pepper offers a lot more than just good looks. Its earthy flavors – smoky and nutty – make for one flavorful sauce, especially for tortilla-based Mexican cuisines like enchiladas, quesadillas, and burritos. Try this cascabel sauce, too, with grilled chicken and beef. We like it without the cilantro to retain the full nuttiness, but some prefer the hint of freshness the cilantro brings to balance some of the earthiness.
As far as chili-based sauces go, few are as brightly beautiful as aji amarillo sauce. It looks like captured sunshine, and its tropical flavor and medium-high heat tastes terrific on everything from chicken to french fries. Aji amarillo is a staple of Peruvian cooking, so this sauce works very well with South American cuisine and other Peruvian recipes. If you happen to have fresh aji amarillo available, use it instead of the paste.
The world of paprika is surprisingly complex… You have sweet and you have hot. You have generic, Spanish (three types), and Hungarian (eight types). And then you have smoked too. Where does smoked paprika fit in? How does it typically differ from other forms of …
Guajillo peppers are well-loved for their smokiness and tea-like sweetness, and it’s these two flavors that make it such an excellent salsa pepper. Here mixed with tomatillo, this guajillo salsa has a sweet tang with a trailing smoke. It’s excellent finely blended and served with …
Have an excess of fresh hot peppers sitting in your kitchen? Canning them is a terrific way to extend their lifecycle so that you can enjoy the heat year-round. Canned hot peppers have the same chili heat burst with a terrific tangy pickle taste which makes …
They may look as different as two chilies can get, but are they really that different in the kitchen? Can you easily substitute a poblano for an Anaheim pepper and vice versa, or are they better left to their own devices? And what about heat? Sure, they’re both mild, but there’s mild and then there’s MILD. These questions and more are about to be tackled in the next PepperScale Showdown!
Popular powders meet off! Both paprika and chili powder are spice rack staples. You’d be hard pressed to find a well-stocked kitchen that doesn’t include these two powders. But how are they similar and how are they different? Can you substitute one for another in a pinch? Does …
Bring on the guacamole extreme! So you want to experience new heights of heat in your homemade guacamole? Â Get ready for this. Habanero guacamole may look like your normal appetizer dip or Mexican side, but underneath all that smooth green is an explosion just waiting …
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