The chili pepper, chilli pepper, or chili, is the fruit of the plants from the genus Capsicum, which are members of the nightshade family, Solanaceae. Even though chilis may be thought of as a vegetable, their culinary usage is, generally, a spice, the part of the plant that is usually harvested is the fruit, and botany considers the plant a berry shrub.

The name, which is spelled differently in many regions (chili, chile, or chilli), comes from Nahuatl chīlli via the Spanish word chile. The term chili in most of the world refers exclusively to the smaller, hot types of capsicum. The mild larger types are called bell pepper in the United States, Canada (and sometimes the United Kingdom), sweet pepper in Britain and Ireland, capsicum in Pakistan India and Australasia, and paprika in many European countries. Bell peppers are often named simply by their colour (e.g. green or red pepper).

Chili peppers and their various cultivars originate in the Americas; they are now grown around the world because they are widely used as spices or vegetables in cuisine, and as medicine.

The chilli or chili has a long association with Mexican cuisine as later adapted into Tex-Mex cuisine. Although unknown in Asia until Europeans introduced it there, chilli or chili has also become a part of the Korean, Indian, Indonesian, Szechuan, Thai and other cooking traditions. Its popularity has seen it adopted into many cuisines of the World.


chilli or chilli or chili chilli or chili fruit
The fruit is eaten raw or cooked for its fiery hot flavour which is concentrated along the top of the pod. The stem end of the pod has most of the glands that produce the capsaicin. The white flesh, that surrounds the seeds, contains the highest concentrations of capsaicin. Removing the seeds and inner membranes is thus effective at reducing the heat of a pod.


Fresh Indian Green chilli or chilis sold in HAL market, Bangalorechilli or chili is often sold worldwide as a spice in dried and powdered form. In the United States, it is often made from the Mexican chile ancho variety, but with small amounts of cayenne added for heat. In the Southwest United States, dried ground chilli or chili peppers, cumin, garlic and oregano is often known as chilli or chili powder. Chipotles are dry, smoked red (ripe) jalapeños.

chilli or chili peppers are also often used around the world to make a wide variety of sauces, known as hot sauce, chilli or chili sauce, or pepper sauce. There are countless recipes.

Indian cooking has multiple uses for chilli or chilis, from snacks like bajji where the chilli or chilis are dipped in batter and fried to the notoriously hot vindaloo. chilli or chilis are also dried and roasted and salted for later use as a side dish for rice varieties like vadam (a kind of pappad). In Turkish or Ottoman cuisine, chilli or chilis are widely used where it is known as Kırmızı Biber (Red Pepper) or Acı Biber (Hot Pepper). Sambal is dipping sauce made from chilli or chili peppers with many other ingredients such as garlic, onion, shallots, salt, vinegar and sugar, which is very popular in Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore. chilli or chili powder is an important spice in Persian cuisine and is used moderately in a variety of dishes.


chilli or chilli or chili chilli or chili leaves
The leaves of the chilli or chili pepper plant, which are mildly bitter, are cooked as greens in Filipino cuisine, where they are called dahon ng sili (literally "chilli or chili leaves"). They are often used in the chicken soup dish known as tinola.

In Korean cuisine, the leaves are also used to produce kimchi
In Japanese cuisine,the leaves are cooked as greens, and also cooked in tsukudani style for preservation.


chilli or chilli or chili Decoration

chilli or chili peppers can also be used decorativelyThere are entire breeds of chilli or chili pepper which are not intended for consumption at all, but are grown only for their decorative qualities, generally referred to as "ornamental peppers". Some of them are too hot for most common cooking techniques, or simply don't taste good. Some are grown for both decoration and food. Either way, they tend to have peppers of unusual shapes or colors. Examples of these include Thai Ornamental, Black Pearl, Marble, Numex Twilight, and the Medusa pepper. is a green plant which produces fruit starting purple, then ripening to yellow, orange, and red. Black Pearl has black leaves and round black fruit that ripen to a bright red. In India, the chilli or chili, along with lime is used to ward off evil spirits and is often seen in vehicles and in homes for that purpose. It is also used to check the evil eye and remove its effects in Hinduism as people will also be asked to spit into a handful of chilli or chilis kept in that plate, which are then thrown into fire. If the chilli or chilis make a noise - as they should - then there is no case of "drishti" (evil eye); if on the other hand they don't make any sound, then the spell of the evil eye is removed in the fire.



In selecting herbal treatments herbalists may use forms of information that are not applicable to pharmacists. Because herbs can moonlight as vegetables, teas or spices they have a huge consumer base and large-scale epidemiological studies become feasible. Ethnobotanical studies are another source of information. [36] For example, when indigenous peoples from geographically dispersed areas use closely related herbs for the same purpose that is taken as supporting evidence for its efficacy.[citation needed] Herbalists contend that historical medical records and herbals are underutilized resources.[37] They favor the use of convergent information in assessing the medical value of plants. An example would be when in-vitro activity is consistent with traditional use.

Certain strains of herbalism rely on sources that would be widely considered unreliable and would not be accepted in a scientifically oriented herbal journal. These include astrology, the Bible, intuition, dreams, “plant spirits”, etc.