Cayenne Pepper

Cayenne pepper is one of the hottest ground red peppers.

In early American cooking, cayenne pepper was added to many dishes; not just for heat, but also for its subtle enhancement of other flavors. In older spice trade definitions, any pepper that was hotter-than-hot was called "cayenne," after an area of South America which once exported super-hot peppers. This pepper will zip up any dish. When a recipe calls for red pepper, this is the pepper it means.