The Best Spices for Chili: What Each One Does, and How the Styles Differ

Great chili starts with chile, usually dried, and it carries most of the flavor, color and heat in most of the recipes here. Around it, nearly every recipe here uses cumin, oregano and garlic, and a few extras mark out the regional styles: cocoa and coriander in some Texas reds, cinnamon, allspice and cloves in Cincinnati chili, and a very spare hand in New Mexico red chile. That jar of supermarket chili powder is a blend, too, and a mild one. Below: what each spice does in the pot, and when to add it.

At a glance

Chili powder versus ground chile

The “chili powder” on a supermarket shelf is a blend, not pure ground chile. The USDA’s purchasing specification says chili powder should include ground chili pepper, cumin, oregano, salt and garlic powder, and lists it separately from plain ground red pepper and paprika. The same spec sets a pungency range of 900 to 2,000 Scoville units for chili powder bought under it,¹ so the blend is meant to be mild. That figure covers federal purchases only, not every brand on the shelf. Saveur describes the blend much the same way: dried chiles, usually ancho, with oregano, cumin, garlic and sometimes salt.²

A blend fixes the ratio for you, so it’s the easiest way to season chili. Building your own from single spices lets you push whichever part you want. Single-chile powders like ancho, pasilla and guajillo give you chile without the cumin and oregano. For how blended chili powder differs from paprika, see paprika vs. chili powder. Out of it? See chili powder substitutes.

The core spices and what each one does

Dried chile: base flavor, color and heat

Chile is the defining ingredient, and in blended chili powder it’s usually ancho. The Chile Pepper Institute at New Mexico State University describes anchos as dark, wrinkled and reddish-brown to black, with mild heat of 1,000 to 2,000 Scoville heat units and sweet, smoky, dried-fruit flavors.³ That’s the Institute’s general figure for the pepper type, not a measurement of any particular lot or powder.

Both whole-pod recipes here combine chiles: one sweet and fruity for body, one sharper or hotter for lift. Texas Monthly’s recipe pairs ancho with pasilla,⁴ and a Saveur chili con carne uses guajillo with small, hot chiles de árbol.⁵ In the Texas Monthly pot, hot chile is a small supporting player: ½ teaspoon of cayenne against 19 dried pods.⁴

Want it hotter? PepperScale points out that most chili powders aren’t very hot, so adding enough blend for a real jump in heat also piles in all its other spices. It suggests cayenne instead, which it rates at 30,000 to 50,000 Scoville heat units, or chipotles in adobo, which it rates at 2,500 to 8,000 and says to start with one or two.⁶ Those ranges are PepperScale’s, not measurements.

Cumin: earthy warmth

The USDA specification for commercially packed chili calls for a “well-blended chili powder/cumin flavor and aroma,”⁷ which puts cumin right next to chile as part of how the dish is expected to taste, at least for federal purchasing.

Cumin is easy to overdo, and its earthiness can turn bitter and take over. If that happens, see too much cumin. The Texas Monthly recipe toasts whole seeds and grinds them right before use.⁴ For how whole and pre-ground compare, see cumin seeds vs. ground cumin.

Oregano: the herbal top note

Oregano is the one herb in the USDA chili powder list,¹ and it gives the pot a green, slightly bitter lift over the deep chile and cumin. Plenty of Southwestern and Texas recipes ask for Mexican oregano specifically, including the Texas Monthly chili⁴ and NMSU Extension’s red chile sauce.⁸ Mexican oregano is a different plant from the oregano most cooks know. For how the two taste and swap, see Mexican oregano vs. oregano.

Garlic: savory backbone

Garlic shows up in nearly every recipe here, from Gebhardt’s early chili con carne (“a few buttons of chopped garlic”)⁹ to 15 cloves in the Texas Monthly pot.⁴ Fresh garlic is more pungent. Garlic powder dissolves evenly into a sauce and mixes easily into a homemade spice blend. Both work; see garlic powder vs. garlic.

Depth: coriander, black pepper, paprika, cocoa

Some recipes add a layer of supporting spices. The Texas Monthly recipe, adapted from Terry Thompson-Anderson’s Texas on the Table, uses toasted ground coriander, sweet Hungarian paprika, freshly ground black pepper and 2 teaspoons of unsweetened cocoa alongside its chiles and cumin.⁴ You don’t need any of these for chili to taste like chili. They round out the chile and add body.

Regional and stylistic variants

Texas red (chili con carne)

Keep the beans out of this one. Texas Monthly notes the state’s “near universal, almost hysterical aversion” to beans in it.⁴

Defining spices: dried chiles (or chili powder), cumin, oregano, garlic.

The Texas Monthly pot is the most layered of the three. The Saveur and Gebhardt versions stick to chile, cumin or a blend, and a few basics. The booklet’s 3 tablespoons of chili powder to 2 pounds of beef is a handy historical reference if you’re building a powder-based pot.

Cincinnati chili

Cincinnati chili is a different dish altogether: a thin, finely ground meat sauce served over spaghetti and ordered by “ways” (two-way is chili and noodles, three-way adds cheese, four-way adds onions or beans, five-way has everything).¹⁰ The original Cincinnati recipe used beef with spices like cloves, cinnamon and nutmeg.¹¹

Defining spices: cinnamon, allspice, cloves, nutmeg, on top of chili powder and cumin. Saveur’s version leads with chili powder and cinnamon, with smaller, equal amounts of oregano, allspice, celery seed, cloves, cumin and nutmeg, plus a bay leaf.¹² You’ll often hear chocolate named as the “secret ingredient.” Cincinnati Magazine says that’s not accurate.¹⁰

New Mexico red and green chile

In the New Mexico sources here, “red” and “green” mean chile sauces built on New Mexico chiles, not a Texas-style bowl of chili, and the seasoning is spare. The chile carries the dish. NMSU Extension’s red chile enchilada sauce uses chile purée, garlic (optional), salt and ½ teaspoon of crushed dried Mexican oregano (optional) per cup of purée. A second NMSU version, made from powder, lists cumin and Mexican oregano as optional, with no amounts.⁸ New Mexico Magazine’s beginner recipes season red chile sauce (½ cup chile powder) with just garlic and salt, and green chile sauce (1 cup roasted, peeled green chile) with garlic, onion and salt.¹³

Defining spice: New Mexico chile, red (dried) or green (roasted). Garlic always; Mexican oregano and cumin optional and light. To pick a red powder, the magazine suggests stirring a teaspoon into a cup of hot water and tasting it.¹³

White chicken chili

White chili swaps red chile and beef for chicken, white beans and mild green chiles, so cumin and oregano carry more of the flavor. Iowa State University Extension’s White Chili seasons canned diced green chiles with ground cumin, dried oregano and garlic powder.¹⁴ A University of Tennessee Extension (Bedford County) recipe uses cumin and Mexican oregano, with a little ground red pepper for heat.¹⁵

Defining spices: green chile, cumin, oregano, garlic; optional cayenne for heat.

When to add each spice

Here’s how the recipes above handle timing:

• Dried chile pods: toast in a dry pan, then grind (Texas Monthly)⁴ or soak and purée (NMSU).⁸ Either way, they go in early and simmer with the meat.
• Chile powder and ground spices: cook them briefly in fat before the liquid goes in. NMSU blooms red chile powder in hot oil “until fragrant,” then cooks optional cumin and oregano for 1 minute before adding water or stock.⁸ Saveur’s chili con carne cooks its oregano and cumin with the flour for about 2 minutes.⁵ Keep the heat moderate, since ground spices can scorch.
• Whole cumin and coriander seed: toast whole, then grind, before they go in (Texas Monthly).⁴
• Oregano late (optional): NMSU’s enchilada sauce adds the oregano after the sauce has simmered 10 minutes, then simmers 5 to 7 minutes more.⁸ Cooks add some oregano late to keep more of its herbal note.
• Salt and pepper: at the end, to taste.
• Adjusting: taste after the long simmer. You can add heat and cumin then in small amounts, but they’re hard to take back out.

Who invented chili powder?

William Gebhardt of New Braunfels, Texas, often gets the credit, and chili historian Joe Cooper credited him. The claim is disputed, though. D Magazine reports that DeWitt Clinton Pendery, a Fort Worth grocer, was advertising a chili blend called Chiltomaline in local newspapers by 1890.¹⁶ The dates given for Gebhardt’s first powder are later: 1894 in the New Braunfels Herald-Zeitung,¹⁷ or 1896, when he registered the Eagle Brand trademark and opened a San Antonio factory.¹⁸

One federal footnote: canned or packaged product labeled “chili con carne” in the US has to contain at least 40 percent meat.¹⁹

Related

• Chili powder
• Paprika vs. chili powder
• Garlic powder vs. garlic
• The master list of herbs and spices