The names on a bag are not interchangeable. Ancho is a dried poblano. Pasilla is a dried chilaca. Grocery labels sometimes swap those two anyway. Bon Appétit, Saveur, ATK, Epicurious, and Serious Eats all spend ink on that mix-up because it wrecks a sauce. This page is a cook’s identification list for chili, not a catalog of plants to grow, and not a second company that farms peppers.
The shelf
| Dried chile | What it is | In a pot |
|---|---|---|
| Ancho | Dried ripe poblano. Broad, heart-shaped, wrinkled. | ATK: rich, raisiny sweetness, mild (1/4). Body and fruit. |
| Guajillo | Dried mirasol. Smooth, brick-red, long. | Bon Appétit: tomato jam. Saveur: earthy-sweet, little heat. Color. |
| Pasilla | Dried chilaca. Long, narrow, dark, wrinkled. | Saveur: raisin, prune, more heat than ancho. Epicurious: hay, bitter chocolate. |
| New Mexico | Dried New Mexican type. Smooth, brick red. | ATK: slightly acidic, earthy, heat 2/4. |
| Chipotle | Smoked dried jalapeño (or canned in adobo). | ATK: smoky, chocolaty, tobacco-like sweetness, heat 2/4. |
| Árbol | Small, smooth, bright red. | ATK: bright, smoky undertones, heat 3/4. Sharp heat, not body. |
| Cascabel | Small, round; seeds rattle. | ATK: nutty, woodsy, heat 2/4. Epicurious: peanut-y, hotter end. |
| Pequín | Tiny, round, deep red. | ATK: bright, citrusy, heat 3/4. NMSU H-236 lists piquin among dehydrated types. |
Mulato, on ATK’s page, is a darker, smokier relative of ancho (they call it a dried smoked poblano with licorice and dried cherry). Serious Eats notes that both mulato and ancho come from poblanos, with mulato taken further into maturity. Use mulato when you want the darker cocoa note without jumping to pasilla’s long skinny pod.
Toast, soak, blend
| Step | What the public methods say | Watch |
|---|---|---|
| Toast | Dry pan, whole pods, until fragrant. Seconds per side on the Texas method and ATK’s dried-chile notes | Not black. Burnt chile is bitter in the puree |
| Soak | Hot water until the pod bends. Soak times stay on those host pages | Brittle leftover bits mean the soak was short or the pod was old |
| Blend | With broth until actually smooth; López-Alt’s puree is the chili | Tough guajillo skins speckle a sauce if the blender quits early. Strain for a contest-smooth gravy |
López-Alt’s public Texas method is the working example, not a house recipe. Stems and seeds off. Toast whole dried chiles. Soak. Blend with broth until smooth. That puree is the chili. He groups pods by job: sweet dried chiles (costeño, New Mexico, choricero), small hot ones (árbol), rich fruity ones (ancho, mulato, negro, pasilla), plus chipotle in adobo. The mix is the point. One bag of “chili powder” collapses those jobs into salt and cumin.
Bon Appétit: one tablespoon of powder per whole chile as a rough stand-in, one teaspoon per chipotle. That is a conversion, not an ideal. NYT Cooking’s chili guide still starts from a mixture: fresh jalapeños, dried anchos, pasilla powder, with a Robb Walsh homemade powder that begins by toasting anchos.
Do not burn the toast. A few seconds per side on a dry pan, until fragrant, not black. Soaking is until pliable. Blending should be actually smooth; tough guajillo skins will speckle a sauce if the blender quits early. Strain if the register wants a contest-smooth gravy.
Worked example. A three-chile red, from public notes
ATK plus Kenji, not a branded bowl: ancho for raisiny body, guajillo (or New Mexico) for brick color and a little acid, árbol or chipotle for heat or smoke. Toast, seed, soak, blend. Taste the puree before it meets the meat. If it is only hot, you used too much árbol. If it is brown and flat, you are short on guajillo. If it is sweet and thick but dull, you need a toasted spice (cumin) bloomed in fat, which is a different shelf than the pods.
Names on the dried-chile shelf
NMSU H-236 is an extension guide to dehydrated chile as a processed crop: New Mexican, cayenne, ancho, pasilla, mirasol, piquin, de árbol; paprika as the trade word for nonpungent red powder. The names stay honest. The fruit on this shelf is already dry and destined for a pot.
Storage, from the same guide: ground chile loses color faster than whole pods; storage temperature affects color more than any other environmental factor; 32 to 41 °F in the dark is recommended; light and oxygen bleach pigment. UF/IFAS: when a poblano is ripened and dried it is called ancho; chipotle is a wood-smoked ripe jalapeño. USDA FoodData Central names “Peppers, ancho, dried” (FDC 169396).
Home cupboard
A home cupboard is not 32 to 41 °F. H-236 is a commercial color-retention range. Whole pods, dark, cool, and sealed is the practical stand-in. Do not freeze-claim a year of flavor from a grocery bag left on a sunny shelf.
For the two-chile pantry that does most of a red’s work, see ancho vs guajillo.