How to Make Jalapeno Powder

Jalapeno powder seasoning is the bomb! If you love adding heat to your recipes this is a great way to do just that. Make it cheap at home and store it for up to a year this way. Have it on hand to use in all your favorite dishes.

Let’s skip the preservatives and make our own powdered jalapenos shall we? There are always weird ingredients if you look on the back of your spice bottles, this way it is pure and just ONE thing.

Whether you’re trying to eat healthier, or save money you will achieve both of them with these simple instructions. They are just as great in all your recipes but if you don’t have roasted jalapenos on hand this is the next best thing.

Tips for Success

You start off by drying fresh all of your pieces so they are free from any moisture. To reduce the heat level, remove the membranes and seeds. Then you want them to be sliced into equal sized dials so they bake at the same rate to a crispy texture.

Preheat your oven before adding your parchment paper lined baking sheet so they don’t stick. Baking time will vary slightly, but take them out once they are hard and crispy to use as the base to prepare our seasoning.

Allow these to cool completely and then add into spice grinder. A blender will work but won’t get as fine so you will have larger chunks that aren’t as pleasant. Pulse to be as fine as you’d like, for us it should be a .

Jalapeno Powder Uses

I mean whatever you want to become spicy you can use this in. Just a few suggestions would be to add a pinch into your Instant Pot chili, add a bit into your Mexican cornbread, in salsa, a number of different types of sauces, stew, and taco meat.

You don’t need much either. Depending on how daring you are, usually 1/8-1/4 of a teaspoon is where it’s at. Nice thing about making this yourself is you really can adjust the heat level to your liking.

If you remove them all they will still have the great flavor you love but become quite mild in nature. Leave them all in for a spicier addition, or leave some for medium heat. Take your pick. Very similar to hatch chiles really, except those have a membrane you have to get rid of too.

How to Store Properly

You always want it to completely cool before bagging or maintain the flavor and heat, as well as keep them hard. Any moisture left will start to seep out and make your jalapeño powder damp. The result of this will be mold and you’ll have to throw out your entire batch, no good.

If you have ever bought these types of peppers at the store you know they are pretty inexpensive, but don’t last forever. For those who use them quite often it can be a pain going to the store for just this. Following this recipe you can make sliced dehydrated jalapenos peppers and grind them as well into a fine pepper powder. Both are great for cooking.

How Hot is Jalapeno Powder?

If you are familiar with the chili pepper Scoville rating, these fall into the range of 2,500-5,000 heat units, similar to roasted jalapeno. Much hotter than your traditional chili powder in the bottle, or red hot sauce. I would suggest grinding into a very fine powder so there aren’t any chunks that surprise you.

You would use these same steps with any other hot peppers you wanted to make into a powder recipe of sorts. Just use your favorite peppers, adjust how many seeds are left in, slice fine and bake.

They all have a broad range to them though, depending on the type. Ghost is the hottest, to red peppers and all the way down to bell peppers which can be on the sweet side a bit actually.