Homemade Spicy Chili Powder Recipe (2024)

Homemade Spicy Chili Powder Recipe

Cooking and seasoning with chili powder is a natural thing in the Chili Pepper Madness household, as I’m sure it is in any spicy food lover’s kitchen. It’s a quick and easy way to add depth, flavor and, yes, heat to your dishes, though some chili powders are as hot as others.

Which, of course, begs the question…

What is Chili Powder?

Your typical American chili powder blend is NOT simply ground chili peppers. It is, in fact, a mixture of seasonings where ground peppers play an important part.

Most store bought chili powder blends will contain ground chili peppers (such as cayenne, paprika, or both) along with a mixture of powdered garlic, cumin, and oregano.

An example is this recipe:Homemade Chili Powder.

You’ll find other ingredients as well, sometimes salt, sometimes basil, sometimes onion, sometimes other milder peppers. All good ingredients, typically.

It is an outstanding go-to seasoning blend that can be used for so much more than making your standard pot of chili.

That said, what we’re talking about above is a generic recipe for chili powder, which leaves it open to interpretation as well as experimentation, particularly where us spicy loving chiliheads are involved.

We want it SPICY, don’t we? We want it HOT! We want it BOLD!

YES!

How to Make Homemade Spicy Chili Powder

It’s all about the ratios of ingredients, my friends, and it really boils down to your own personal preferences. What we’re doing is altering your typical chili powder seasoning blend by switching up ratios, but after that, we’ll discuss ways to make your chili powder blend REALLY hot and spicy.

Easy Spicy Chili Powder Seasoning – Recipe

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons paprika
• 1 tablespoon cayenne
• 1 tablespoon garlic powder
• 1 tablespoon dried oregano
• 1 teaspoon onion powder
• 1 teaspoon cumin

Directions

• Mix all of the ingredients together in a bowl. Use as needed.

Recipe Notes

Heat Levels. You’ll get a good level of heat from the cayenne pepper, and some solid flavor from the paprika and mixture of other ingredients. Most store bought chili powders won’t contain quite so much paprika or cayenne.

Of course you are free to adjust your ratios to your own personal preferences, as mentioned.

Too spicy? Reduce the cayenne. Want a smoky element? Use smoked paprika instead of regular paprika. You can also find HOT paprika on the market. Great for me! Love garlic? Double it. Add salt as you see fit.

Which leads me to another discussion…

How to Make EXTRA Hot Spicy Chili Powder

Making your spicy chili powder extra hot requires the addition of extra hot ground peppers. Ghost pepper powder is one of the most common ingredients for making EXTRA hot spicy chili powder, though you can use other chili peppers.

You can find ground ghost pepper powder online or through specialty stores. Here are some links – they’re affiliate links, my friends! Smoked Ghost Powderor get it in bulk – Buy Ghost Pepper Powder.

Or, you can do what I do – Grow your own chili peppers, then dehydrate them and grind them into powders. See my post: How to Dehydrate Peppers and Make Chili Powders.

I love a good chili powder with a mixture of peppers, including ghost peppers, 7 pots, a variety of aji peppers and some sweet peppers. I LOVE the mixture and the resulting flavors.

Of course you can use the above dehydrating method to make spice blends and rubs of all sorts outside of chili powders, so I urge you to get a dehydrator for such tasks. Check out my book, “The Spicy Dehydrator Cookbook”, where I include a chapter about this with ideas and techniques.

I will leave you with a simple, attainable recipe for making Extra Hot Spicy Chili Powder for you to start with, and you can go from there.

Let me know how they turn out for you. Keep it spicy! – Mike H.

Safety Advice

When working with hotter peppers, including superhots, it is important to wear gloves when handling the peppers both in raw and dried forms. The oils can get on your skin and cause burning sensations. See above.

Need help? How to Stop the Chili Pepper Burn On Your Skin.

Also, the fumes from the chili peppers and/or the fine powders may get into the air if you are not working in a well ventilated room, so you may want to wear a mask and goggles. Superhot chili peppers, truly, are called superhots for a reason.

Easy Spicy Chili Powder Seasoning – Recipe

A recipe for making your own spicy chili powder blend at home for adding both heat and flavor to your dishes.

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons paprika
• 1 tablespoon cayenne
• 1 tablespoon garlic powder
• 1 tablespoon dried oregano
• 1 teaspoon onion powder
• 1 teaspoon cumin

Directions

• Mix all of the ingredients together in a bowl. Use as needed.

Mike’s Extra Hot Spicy Chili Powder Seasoning – Recipe

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons hot paprika
• 1 tablespoon ghost pepper powder
• 1 tablespoon garlic powder
• 1 tablespoon dried oregano
• 1 teaspoon onion powder
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• Pinch of salt

Directions

• Mix all of the ingredients together in a bowl. Use as needed.

Cookbook Recommendation

If you enjoy spicy cooking, I hope you'll check out my cookbook! 75 easy recipes with big, bold flavor.

• The Spicy Food Lovers' Cookbook, by Mike Hultquist (affiliate link, my friends!)

Check Out Some of My Other Homemade Seasoning Blends

• Homemade Seasonings/Powders Recipes
• Homemade American Chili Powder
• Steak Seasoning Mix
• Homemade Cajun Seasoning Blend
• Homemade Fajita Seasoning
• Homemade Taco Seasoning
• Homemade Rib Rub
• Homemade Ghost Pepper Powder
• Homemade Cayenne Powder Recipe
• Homemade Chipotle Powder