Matt Bray 
For some use cases, traditional guacamole is just too thick. That’s when something smooth fits right in. Spicy avocado sauce has an earthy tang (love those tomatillos) and solid bite, making it a perfect sauce for use as a taco topping or as dipping sauce for …
Poblano peppers and bell peppers are both incredibly popular and easy to find. They are both staples for North American cooking and Mexican dishes, but how do they truly differ? How much hotter is a poblano, really, from a bell? And how different is their …
Gochujang has been making inroads into the relatively new American market for Asian hot sauces and chili pastes. Sriracha and sambal oelek were the pioneers, and they continue to be the most popular examples. Gochujang is a Korean challenger. So what is gochujang? Let’s explore its …
Cayenne and serrano peppers are two of the more common chilies you’ll find in supermarkets. But the form you find them in is quite different – the serrano more common fresh and cayenne pepper more often found in powdered form. How do their heat levels …
Pairing sweet and spicy is one of life’s most wonderful things (in our book anyway), and it doesn’t get much finer than pairing mango and habanero. The rich tropical sweetness of mango is big-flavored enough to pair well with fiery habanero peppers. Ginger and molasses even things out …
Scotch bonnets and jalapeños are two spicy peppers that come from different parts of the Americas: the scotch bonnet from the Caribbean islands and jalapeños from Mexico. But both have global popularity. So which is hotter than the other? How does their flavor and shape …
What is the Scoville Scale? We all know that chili peppers are hot, but the Scoville scale (sometimes simply referred to as the pepper scale) helps us put a rating to them. That’s the simplest of definitions for the Scoville scale. It’s a numerical heat …
So cayenne-based crushed red pepper just isn’t hot enough for you? That’s ok. Habanero peppers can amp things up quite nicely. Habanero flakes can work anywhere you’d use generic red pepper flakes, with a couple of flavor twists. There’s an ever-so-slight hint of sweetness to them that you …
Canned jalapeños and fresh jalapeños are both used liberally in many Latin and Tex-Mex recipes. Each brings different qualities to a dish that you should keep in mind when choosing between them. How do they differ? Let’s compare the two. How do canned jalapeños differ from …
Cayennes and jalapeños are two of the most popular chilies in the world. They are both very common in the kitchen, but their looks, heat, and use cases typically differ quite a bit. Let’s compare these two chilies – their heat, flavor, use cases, and …