While paprika also comes from the capsicum plant, it is sweeter and milder than the hot varieties of red chili peppers. Though the paprika pepper is commonly used in Hungary and Spain, it also grows extensively in the US. Red peppers that are bright red in color when growing are typically sweeter and milder than the yellow or brown ones, which may be hotter.

You can buy chili garlic sauce; trader joe’s carries it, and the rooster garlic chili sauce (Huy Fong Foods) can be found in most stores. The problem is that they use red jalapenos, red chili peppers, or Thai chili peppers that can be so spicy they overpower the aromatic taste of the sauce.

Bell Pepper Powder

This recipe for spicy garlic sauce is addicting as is, but if you want to experiment, I have listed a few ideas below to try.

Another worthy replacement for smoked paprika is ancho chili powder. It’s made from dried and ground ancho chiles. This pepper is more common in Mexican cooking but found its way into the United States by way of Tex Mex cuisine. They offer mild to medium heat that only ranges from 1,000 to 1,500 SHU. It has a deep, smoky and slightly sweet flavor. For this reason, you don’t have to worry as much when using this as a replacement as it won’t overpower your dish as easily compared to chipotle powder. To use as an effective backup, you can incorporate exactly how much a recipe calls for smoked paprika.

If you don't have any paprika in the house, you can use any number of alternate spices, as long as you realize that the flavor of the final product won't taste the same as it would with the sweet paprika. Use nutmeg, cinnamon or cloves instead of paprika in a deviled egg or potato salad recipe. Replace the paprika in chili with mace, mustard, garlic powder or cumin, or use ground ginger or black pepper instead of paprika in your favorite fried rice recipe.

Sweet paprika is the most common and available type, at least in North American supermarket spice aisles. If a recipe, or a spice bottle, simply says paprika without specifying which kind, it refers to the sweet kind. Sweet paprika has a very mild, sweet flavor and imparts a reddish hue to whatever it's sprinkled on or mixed into.

In a nutshell: capsaicin is a lipophilic compound that can be found in different concentrations in peppers that are described as hot, such as Habanero, Jalapeño, and Scorpion. It is a compound that produces a burning sensation in any tissue it comes into contact with. So, the more capsaicin in the pepper, the more the heat gets turned up.

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