Homemade Chilli Powder

Making your own chilli powder is so easy and blows shop bought ones out of the water. If you make it with homegrown chillis – even better!

So how do you make Chilli Powder from fresh Chillies?

The first thing that you have to do is get the chillies properly dry. If you’re lucky enough to be using your own homegrown ones or if they are shop bourght the process is the same. You can go the traditional route – stringing them up and letting them dry slowly and naturally or wham them in the oven. Or even a dehydrator if you have one!

I have gone down the ‘string em up’ path most years because i like to see them all hanging up like spicy fairy lights but for some reason, this year i had a few go moldy on me. Especially the Habanero types so i resorted to the oven method and if i’m honest – i’ll probably always do it this way from now on. It was so fast and easy.

Step One – Drying the Chillies

Cut the green tops off the chillies and halve them lengthways, leaving all the gubinge and seeds inside. Lay them out on a baking tray and put them in a low oven (about 75-80) and leave them until they are totally dry. This could be 2hrs, could be 4, it depends on the variety and the oven. But they want to be so dry they crackle when you pinch them. If they are at all flexible you’ll end up with chilli paste not powder.

And once they are properly dry this isn’t just for making powder or flakes, drying chillis is a fantastic way to store them for use over the winter. They do have a different taste dry to fresh though and so i tend to also put some undried, whole ones in the freezer to use as you would a fresh one.

At this point i normally separate out a few and put some into olive oil and get a ‘sundried tomato’ effect plus chilli oil and the the rest i grind up.

Okay on to the powder –

Next job is to stick them in one of my favorite kitchen gadgets. The Spice Grinder! If you haven’t got one, i recommend them. This is the one i have – HERE – There are lots of different types but i’ve had this same one twice. The first one lasted about 15 years then i replaced it with a different sort and it last lest than a year. So i hunted this one down. Anyway, put your crunchy dry chillies in here and whizz them up!

Simple as that!

I have used a pestle and mortar for this before, and it took forever! But it is totally possible.

How to store your Chilli Powder – 

I like to grind all my varieties separately because they have such wildly different flavours. When you grind Lemon Drop, for example, it keeps the heat but develpopes this magnificent alsmost flourecent colour and you can really taste the citrus much more strongly than when fresh and there are some powders i make from chillies with almost no heat at all. Like the green jalapeno. Using that in cooking is like sprinkling the very essence of peppers into a meal. Heaven.

Chilli powder will keep for quite a long time if its stored in an air tight container and out of direct sun light. Although if the chillies were properly dry when it was made it shouldn’t ever really go ‘off’, it will loose its flavour like most herbs and spices. Id say it can be kept for up to 3 years without much loss of taste if stored well though!

Not much chance of it lasting 3 years in my house though….

Let me know if you have a go at this bellow in the comments! I would love to know which varieties you try and how they turn out!