Paprika
The vibrant spice from dried red peppers, essential to Hungarian, Spanish, and global cuisines.
It is traditionally produced from milder Longum group peppers with thinner flesh than those used for chili powder.[1] Sweet paprika contains mostly the fruit with most seeds removed, while hot paprika retains some seeds and stalks.[1] Dried and ground red peppers from Capsicum annuum are what constitute the spice paprika.[1]
Quick Facts
- Serving size
- 100 g
- Calories
- 282
- Protein
- 14
- Carbohydrate
- 54
Facts from the source article.
Key facts and history
Capsicum annuum is native to northern South America and southwestern North America, where peppers were gathered by 7000 BC and cultivated before 3500 BC.[2][3] Christopher Columbus likely encountered peppers on his first voyage in 1492 and may have brought plants to Europe.[3] Peppers reached Italy by 1526, Germany by 1543, and were known in Hungary by 1569.[4] The first recorded English use of "paprika" was in 1830, in The Times mentioning "paprika soup".[5]
Hungary's two main growing areas are around Szeged and Kalocsa in the south of the country.[3] Before the 1920s, all Central European paprika was hot; that changed when a breeder in Szeged discovered a sweet-fruit plant and used grafting to propagate it.[6] J. Csapé's 1775 Herbarium contains the first Hungarian use of the word "paprika", where he referred to it as "paprika garden pepper".[6] The Hungarian word paprika is a diminutive form derived from the Serbo-Croatian papar (meaning pepper), which itself traces back to Latin piper or Greek piperi.[7]
What the cited sources add
A 2025 PepperScale article notes that plain paprika typically does not exceed 100 to 500 Scoville heat units.[8] The same source lists Hungarian paprika grades from Különleges (sweet and mild) to Erős (hottest).[8] A Food Reference article states that paprika peppers have seven times as much vitamin C as oranges.[9] That article also reports that a Hungarian scientist, Dr. Szent-Györgyi, won a Nobel Prize in 1937 for work with paprika pepper pods and vitamin C research.[9]
The Food Reference article notes that water and windmills were later used to grind paprika pods.[9] It adds that paprika should be purchased in small quantities and kept in airtight containers away from sunlight.[9] Rick Stein's BBC goulash recipe, from his series Long Weekends, lists both sweet and hot paprika among its ingredients.[10]
References
- Wikipedia, "Paprika" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: ; Somos, "The Paprika", Akadémiai Kiadó, 1984 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Paprika" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: ; ; García-Gaytán, "The Chilhuacle Chili (Capsicum annuum L.) in Mexico: Description of the Variety, its Cultivation, and Uses", International Journal of Agronomy, 2017-03-19 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Paprika" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Davidson, p. 573 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Paprika" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Davidson, p. 573; "Paprika", Etymonline (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Paprika" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "The Magyar Maid", The Times, 12 February 1830; David (2000), p. 43 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Paprika" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Sasvari, p. 202; ; Lang, p. 130; Davidson, p. 573; Lang, p. 130 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Paprika" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: ; "Paprika", Etymonline (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Bray, Matt. "Is Paprika Spicy?", PepperScale, 28 March 2025. facts only, no text reused. pepperscale.com
- "Paprika — Food Facts", Food Reference. facts only, no text reused. foodreference.com
- Stein, "Goulash recipe", BBC Food. facts only, no text reused. bbc.co.uk
Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Paprika (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.
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