Maras pepper substitutes

The closest match on earth, from the same chilli tradition either side of the Turkish-Syrian border, with the same coarse oily flake and the same mild fruity heat.

Best for

finishing yogurt, eggs, soups and dips, blooming in butter or olive oil, kebab and kofte mixes, lentil soup and pide, salad dressings

In most kitchens these are treated as the same thing. If you taste them side by side, Aleppo tends to be a shade more sour and raisiny and is often oilier and sometimes salted, while Maras is a little cleaner and brighter with a slightly more even heat. Taste your Aleppo before seasoning the dish, because a salted jar will change how much salt the recipe needs.

Coarsely ground deseeded Korean chilli with a comparable mild heat and a brilliant red colour.

Best for

blooming in oil or butter, stews and braises, sprinkling over eggs, rice and roast vegetables, marinades

The heat level and the visual effect are very close, which makes this a much better swap than most people expect. Gochugaru is sweeter and slightly smoky with none of Maras pepper's faint tartness, and it is drier with less residual oil, so a bloomed butter takes a little longer to turn red. The pinch of sumac supplies the missing sour lift. Use coarse flakes, not the fine powder sold for gochujang.

The other great Turkish pepper, sun-dried and sweated so it turns near-black, with a slow-arriving mild heat.

Best for

lamb rubs and kebabs, roast vegetables, dark sauces and braises, unexpected uses such as chocolate desserts

Same heat band, completely different personality. Urfa tastes of raisins, prunes, chocolate and tobacco, and the burn builds slowly at the back of the throat rather than arriving cleanly, so a dish that should look bright red and taste fruity will look dark maroon and taste smoky and sweet. Excellent on lamb; wrong when Maras pepper is meant to be a red finishing sprinkle.

The pantry staple most people already have, and the one that needs the most care.

Best for

cooked dishes where the pepper is a background note, soups and stews, when nothing else is available

Roughly three times hotter than Maras pepper and made from whole dried chillies including seeds and membrane, so it tastes sharper, hotter and grassier, and the pale seeds look wrong scattered over a white bowl of yogurt. Use a third to a half as much, shake the flakes through a small sieve to lose the seeds, and add a pinch of sweet paprika to bring back colour and fruit.

The honest last resort, which gives you the colour and roughly the right heat and nothing else.

Best for

colour in a cooked dish, rubs and marinades, when Maras pepper is a minor seasoning rather than a garnish

There is no flake, so it dissolves into the dish instead of sitting on top of it as visible red specks, and it tastes flatter, with paprika's earthy sweetness in place of Maras pepper's fruit. It is fine stirred into a soup or a kofte mix and unconvincing as a finishing sprinkle on menemen or yogurt, where the whole point is the texture and the look.

A Mexican dried chilli powder that sits in the same mild, sweet, fruity register.

Best for

meat rubs, braises and stews, chilli-forward marinades

Ancho is mild and raisiny with a slight smokiness, closer to Urfa than to Maras, and it is a fine powder rather than a flake so it darkens sauces and thickens them very slightly. Good where the pepper is cooked into something; less good where it is scattered on top. Avoid chipotle powder as a stand-in, which drags the dish toward smoky barbecue.