Thai Bird Chile Powder

There’s a decided aroma of peppery heat that rises off the Thai Bird Chile Powder, mixed with the sweet, deep scent of ripe peppers. There’s nothing delicate about this chile powder, and it shows up ready to get to work and elevate the flavors of everything around it. There are about five seconds of lag time from the first taste of this chile powder’s nutty, fruity flavor profile, before the aggressive heat comes in and settles right in the middle of the tongue and lingers. At 40,000-100,000 Scoville Heat Units (SHU), it’s hotter than cayenne pepper but about half as hot as a habanero.

Chiles did not arrive in Thailand until the 16th century, but have become one of the most important vegetable crops in Thailand. Of the 79 types of chiles grown in that country, two varietals compromise the bulk of commercial production. One type, the prik khee fab pepper, basically means “chili”. The other, prik khee nu, is the Thai Bird Chile. The Bird Pepper variety is the more popular of the two; according to the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, there were over 175,000 acres devoted to chile production in the country, with almost 70% of this acreage devoted exclusively to bird peppers.

Tips From Our Kitchen

Try adding Thai Bird Chile Powder to a tofu noodle bowl or a sweet potato curry. Toss over tofu and air-fry. Mix into homemade peanut sauce for additional nutty punch, or stir into a lime-based vinaigrette and use to dress spicy chicken and lettuce wraps or a Thai larb salad. Make a light marinade for chicken or fish by combining Thai Bird Chile Powder with fish sauce, lime juice and sugar. Mix with salt and sugar to create a condiment that complements just about any fresh fruit and would be a great garnish on the rim of a glass for cocktails.

Adding at the beginning of cooking will mellow their heat but cause it to permeate the entire dish. Adding at the end of cooking time allows the chile powder to stay sharp and spicy, but its heat will vary by bite, depending how much is on a particular forkful of food.

To convert from dried chiles to a ground powder, 1 Thai Chile equals approximately ½ teaspoon of Thai Chile Powder. We also have whole Thai Bird Chiles available.

Thai Bird Peppers should not be confused with Bird's Eye Chiles, which are smaller and grown primarily in Africa and India.

Our Thai Bird Chile Powder comes from chiles cultivated in Thailand.

Hungry for more information?