What Is Paprika And Just How Spicy Is It? (2024)

Ah yes, paprika—a very controversial spice in the Delish test kitchen. Our Food Editor Makinze Gore likens it to "red flour" and is not a fan of how dirt-like and tasteless it can be. I, too, agreed with her...at least until I tasted some smoked paprika I bought during a trip to Spain. It was so much fresher than any other bottle of paprika I'd bought, and I could actually taste all the notes of paprika: peppery, sweet, refreshingly brisk and astringent, with a strong smokiness that made vegetarian dishes taste like I'd added cured sausages to them.

In an attempt to explore this delicious red spice, I wanted to tap into the knowledge of an expert who has a much deeper understanding of spices than I do. Enter: Ethan Frisch, co-founder of Burlap & Barrel, world traveler, and professional spice man. For answers to all the questions you've ever had about paprika, watch the video above to drop in on our conversation exploring the definition, origins, and taste profiles of different kinds of paprikas.

Paprika is ground chile pepper. A seasoning that can be used in anything and everything, it can be made from any capiscum pepper that's been dried and turned into a powder. The paprika that's bottled and sold encompasses lots of different kinds of red peppers, and depending on the sourcing and treatment process it undergoes, paprika can be sweet, spicy, or even smoky.

Different kinds of peppers will lend different levels of spiciness, color variations, and flavor notes. Lower quality growing and production conditions tends to yield less intense flavors with potentially more bitter notes, resulting in that "red flour" tainting the reputation of paprika everywhere.

Yes and no. If we're talking about "chili powder," that's actually a seasoning blend of different spices that can include cumin, garlic powder, dried oregano, as well as paprika. Chili powder is used in seasoning the stew dish, chili con carne, hence its name. We can also be talking about "chile powder." It may be just one small letter's difference on paper, but chile powder with an "e" signifies just pure ground chile peppers with no other spices in the mix.

(Adding to that already confusing situation, "chile powder" can sometimes also be spelled with an "i" and stylized as "chili powder." So you can see why this question can be a tricky to answer.)

Usually, chile powder—that is, those pure ground chiles—signifies a much spicier variety of ground pepper than what's used to manufacture paprika. At the end of the day, they're probably all the same species of peppers, known as capiscum annuum, though that single species spans the entire spicy spectrum from innocuously sweet bell peppers to intensely scorching bird's eye chilis. As Ethan says, "It's like wine grapes. Same species of grapes look and taste very different."

Depending on where your paprika peppers came from and depending on what kind of processing it went through, different bottles of paprika can vary widely in taste, fragrance, and color. Ethan believes that "good paprika should smell like a dried fruit: When you open the jar, it should smell sweet, musky in a umami savory kind of way...[with] a touch of vegetal bitterness."

Of course, the only way to truly understand what paprika tastes like is to get your hands on a bottle—preferably a good-quality one so you know what its true potential could be—and to experiment using it in all sorts of applications.

I used it in the usual suspects like a pot of pumpkin chili, as a rub on roasted eggplant, and sprinkled on some sunny side-up eggs. But it wouldn't be an episode of The Spice Show if I didn't do some more unexpected stuff with it, like putting it into my hot cocoa and seasoning a fresh plum as well as a tahini-honey covered bran muffin with it. To find out if paprika is truly as versatile as I think it is, you really just have to try it for yourself.

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