Chili powder is a lie. Most people think it’s just ground-up peppers from Mexico, but it’s actually a mechanical blend invented by a German guy in Texas who couldn’t find fresh ingredients in the winter.
In this episode of THE PROCESS, we’re stripping back the label to show you why your “chili” is 25% cumin and salt, the 160°C toasting secret that creates the flavor, and why authentic Mexican cooks wouldn’t touch this jar. It’s not a secret recipe; it’s a 19th-century workaround.
The world is complex. We simplify it at THE PROCESS.
⭐CHAPTER:
0:00 The Label Lie: What’s Actually Inside?
0:45 The German Workaround: William Gebhardt’s Story
2:05 160°C Precision: The Mechanics of Toasting & Grinding
4:52 The 75/25 Formula: Inside the Industrial Blend
5:47 “Detestable”: What Mexico Really Thinks of It
6:36 Fixing Your Kitchen: Pure Chile vs. The Fake Mix
7:44 Trust The Process
If you are the owner or if you want to be featured please contact us at: theprocess@gmail.com.
We will follow your request as soon as we receive your message.
Copyright disclaimer section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976. “Fair use” is allowed for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarships, and research.
We are not affiliated with the businesses whose products are shown in this documentary!
#chilipowder #theprocess #spiceblending #foodscience
27 Comments
You buy Chili powder from a shop. You put it in your soup. It's spicy and make you eat more food. Do you ever wonder about the process of chili powder? This secret will be shown on this episode. Just find it out!
In America, chilli powder seems to only mean one thing: the ingredients you need to make Mexican chilli.
In the rest of the world though : chilli powder is simply that: powdered chilli. Nothing else.
From Texas; You're welcome, world!
My mother would use no brand except Gebhart's. I make my own 100% chili pequeña powder. There is NO cumin or anything else diluting it. You can't use it to make a dish "red", but it adds a very unique taste to anything it's used in/on. (Not so much the fire, but it has a distinct taste even in small, non-lethal amounts. I question 30-60 sec of drying being enough – mine requires a few hours at less than 180°F to dry sufficiently (and my peppers are much smaller than their starter fruit).
I make my own chili powder.
You Americans are weird. The chilli powder I use in the uk has one ingredient – dried red chilli peppers
I make my own with Spanish paprika, chayanne, garlic powder, and cumin
This is AI Slop.
This video is complete BS! Your visuals come from many different countries and do not match with the nonsense you're telling. One shown is the packing line of La Dalia a Spanish smoked paprika powder and not American chili powder. And in most countries around the world, chili powder is chili powder. In most civilized countries it will be illigal to make such blends and calling them chili powder…
I gave up after the first half dozen mispronounced words. AI voiceovers SUCK!
Ummmm chilis grow in south Texas almost year round….."Only grown a few months out of the year?" The year round warm to hot weather is why chilis come from the southern US and Mexico. He took a blend of peppers, dried them out, and sold them.
This a lie, moron. American chili powder is a blend of spices. Asian chillie (different spellings) powder is pure ground chiles. Get it right.
In Asia we just grind the chilli.
I was wondering what you were on about until you mentioned Mexican. Which I assumed was texmex and not real Mexican from the start.
Cumin is horrible and should never be near any food. Now i know who to hate for introducing this attrocity to chili.
Y'all know that paprika is a pepper variety, right? it's a slightly less spicy and sometimes smoked sweeter version of chili peppers.
Adulterating food is illegal in the US. All ingredients must be listed on the label. Proprietary spice mixes are allowed but must list all ingredients by order of abundance. Trace amounts don't have to be listed except as natural or artificial flavors or spices. Many spice companies sell pure chili powder. We dry our chilies by hanging, the old fashioned way, and grind them as needed in a spice mill. They hold their flavor fairly well. We prefer to mix our spices in the pot.
Texas chili with beans… yeah… ai slop.
The phrase about the thing nobody tells you is a marker for AI generated product. I was enjoying the information, but won't waste my time on AI anything. Too likely to contain errors of fact and lots of babble.
Your first clue – chil—I— vs chil—E—. Very misleading, chili powder is a mix like “taco seasoning “. If you are buying a chile specific powder from a reputable source, it is chile powder. Also, this must be either ai speaking or someone who has never been in a market or restaurant.
This is the secret ingredient in red meth 😵💫
Chili powder… You will find this everywhere. Just about every kitchen here in the USA has it.
Chili, like salt has many variations. Each one has specific flavor profiles for specific dishes.
There is a HUGE difference between powder, flakes, pods and fresh. It takes awhile to figure out how to use each one.
Yet another channel of AI slop, the product of some get-rich-quick guru's "make faceless content" scam. Chili powder is ground chilies. There is also a niche product confusingly called "chili powder" that has all the adulterants in it, but we have had access to real chilies for a very long time now. This is a non-issue, dredged up by non-creators. This type of "content" is the beginning of the end for YouTube as a platform. Once we've all been replaced by our AI overlords, who's gonna watch the spammy cruft they churn out?
Chili stew was not invented by Gebhardt. He just invented bottled chili powder. The chili queens of Texas' cities are generally considered the real inventors of chili, and the earliest published mention of a chili and meat stew refers to California prior to the Gold Rush, and chili stew used rabbit rather than beef.
At 6:24 it shows Japan. Um… 🤔🤔🤔
So it is in fact ground chilis 🙄
You make a good point about "chili powder" being a spice blend. One of my annoyances! I make Garam Masala and 5 Spice powder. I have about 10 different chili pepper powders. I just blend the "chili powder" as I need since I have cumin, oregano, and garlic powders. That way it comes out the way I want it!
One German immigrant…before his time, people did not know how to dry food or use a mortar and pestle?