Berbere: Ethiopia’s Chile Spice Blend, What Is in It and How It Is Used

Doro wot, misir wot, siga wat: Ethiopia’s great stews start with the same red spice blend. Berbere is the chile-based mix at the heart of Ethiopian cooking, and Saveur says the name means “hot” in Amharic.¹ Dried red chiles get toasted and ground with fenugreek, coriander, pepper, ginger and warm spices like cardamom, cloves and allspice. Every household makes its own, and even the sources can’t agree on how hot it is.

At a glance

What is in it

In Katzer’s description, Ethiopian berbere starts with dried chiles toasted until they darken. Long and black pepper, ginger, coriander, fenugreek and a little ajwain go in, with sweetness from cinnamon, cardamom, cloves and even allspice. Rue is another traditional ingredient, he notes, though recipes written for Western cooks often leave it out, and some complex recipes add rue leaves and basil before a final drying.³ He also says the allspice in Ethiopian berbere comes from Réunion.⁶

Two widely shared American recipes are nearly identical:

Sources: Saveur,¹ Tasting Table.⁵

Neither recipe has the long pepper, ajwain or rue that Katzer lists for Ethiopian berbere, and both lean on paprika for bulk and color. Watch the cloves: one recipe means whole cloves, the other garlic cloves. Samuelsson has said every Ethiopian family makes its own berbere and dries it in the sun.⁴

Heat and flavor

Berbere tastes of toasted red chile first. Then comes a warm, slightly bitter, maple-like depth from fenugreek, and a sweet, perfumed finish from cardamom, cloves and cinnamon. How hot it is depends on the chiles, and the sources don’t agree. Katzer describes berbere chile as semihot to hot,³ while Samuelsson calls his blend a mild chile blend mellowed out with sweet and floral flavors.⁴ PepperScale lands in between, at a typically medium heat that varies by blend, and describes the flavor as earthy and richly aromatic, likened by some to curry powder combined with chili powder.² All three are true of different blends, so taste a new jar before you use a full measure. The chiles de árbol in both American recipes above sit at 15,000 to 30,000 Scoville heat units on PepperScale’s pepper list. That’s a conventional range, not a measurement of any batch.⁷

The measured compounds belong to the individual spices. Fenugreek’s curry-like smell comes from sotolon,⁸ and coriander seed oil is 60–80% linalool.⁹ We didn’t find any published aroma analysis of a berbere blend.

History

Chiles, the main ingredient in berbere today, are Capsicum species native to the Americas. Capsicum annuum is native from the southern US to Brazil and the Caribbean. Katzer counts berbere’s long pepper among the signs of Arab influence on the region’s spice blends.¹⁰ You’ll see it claimed that berbere dates to around 5 BC, when Ethiopian traders controlled a Red Sea route to the Silk Road. We couldn’t trace that to any source.

How berbere is used

Wots. Berbere is the base of Ethiopia’s stews. Katzer describes siga wat as lean beef braised in a thick, spicy gravy of chiles, onions and garlic, and doro wat as chicken and hard-boiled eggs in a similar gravy. Saveur names doro wot and misir wot as dishes that depend on it.

Awaze. Mix berbere with water, wine or tej (mead) and you get a paste called awaze, usually served at the table as a condiment. The paste can also be dried again at high heat for a more aromatic spice.³ PepperScale describes awaze as berbere mixed with wine and garlic, and suggests a berbere paste made with oil, water or vinegar as a marinade.² It’s not a roux.

Eritrea. Eritrean cooks use a berbere paste with less chile, where dried onions carry the typical flavor, in dishes like the chicken stew tsebhi dorho and the beef stew zigni.

Beyond Ethiopia. Samuelsson uses berbere from starters to dessert. He sprinkles it on ricotta toast, works it into brown butter for a warm beef tartare, coats raw fish with it, rubs it on rack of lamb and stirs it into honey over pineapple.

Buying and quality

There’s no standard for berbere, so read the label. Paprika-heavy blends will be milder and redder than ones led by hot chile, and some contain salt (both recipes above do). Both recipes, like the Ethiopian practice Katzer describes, toast the whole spices before grinding.

Storage

Saveur and Tasting Table’s Samuelsson recipe both say to keep the blend airtight for up to 6 months.¹⁵ That’s recipe advice, not a measured shelf life. Air, light, moisture and heat all speed flavor and color loss in spices. Rub a little between your fingers. If it barely smells, it’s faded.

Safety

Mycotoxins in the chiles. A 2023 study of the berbere chile supply chain in Amhara, northern Ethiopia, found that farmers commonly spread the pods right on the ground to sun-dry. Of 100 berbere samples collected from harvest to retail, every one tested positive for mycotoxins (aflatoxins and ochratoxins).¹¹ A 2024 study of hot red pepper sold in North Shewa, Oromia, reported total aflatoxin levels in packaged pepper powder above maximum tolerable limits.¹² Both studies sampled Ethiopian markets, not berbere sold in the US or Europe. EU law caps ochratoxin A in dried Capsicum products at 20 µg/kg, aflatoxin B1 at 5.0 µg/kg and total aflatoxins at 10.0 µg/kg.¹³

Lead in spices. A New York City health department review of 1,496 spice samples from 41 countries, collected 2008 to 2017, found detectable lead in more than half. Spices bought abroad had higher average levels.¹⁴ The abstract doesn’t break results out by blend.

Health claims

We found no regulator or systematic review that backs health claims for berbere as a blend. On two of its ingredients, the NIH’s National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health says research shows ginger may help with nausea and vomiting in pregnancy,¹⁵ and that studies of fenugreek for blood sugar were mostly not of high quality.¹⁶ Both summaries are about supplement doses, not the amount in a stew. Claims that berbere’s chiles lower cholesterol and prevent heart attacks, or that its ginger treats diarrhea, colds or flu, couldn’t be traced to any credible source.

Substitutes and related pages

For stand-ins, see berbere substitutes. For the wider pantry, see Ethiopian spices. Ingredients: fenugreek, coriander, long pepper, black pepper, ginger, cardamom, cloves, allspice, cinnamon, carom seeds (ajwain) and paprika. Other chile blends: harissa powder, chili powder and cayenne pepper. Related blends: baharat and hawaij.