Smoky, hot chipotle peppers in a seasoned adobo tomato sauce. Candy in a can!

Chipotle (pronounced “chee-POHT-lay”) peppers are ripe, red jalapenos that have been dried and smoked. In their dried form, they look brown and leathery. In the sweet, adobo sauce, they are soft and red.

The adobo sauce, which can be purchased canned by itself, is a lightly spiced, thin tomato sauce. See ingredients below.

These babies are hot, smoky and sweet. You have to chop them to use in recipes, because the whole pepper is too big and hot to add whole.

Chop some up and throw in your burgers before cooking, add to barbecue sauces, baked beans… or whenever you want that fresh, hot and smoky chipotle flavor in your recipe!

They are the base for my Mega’s Smoky Chipotle Salsa as well as the main ingredient in Rachel Ray’s “Texas Hold-ums Mini Chipotle Burgers with Warm Fire-roasted Garlic Ketchup” – yea, it’s a mouthfull! But they are incredibly good!

I prefer the La Morena brand, or La Costena or Herdez brands. Stay away from the San Marcos brand, I think they are inferior.

After opening, these keep in the fridge for 3-4 weeks in an airtight container.

Ingredients:

• chipotle peppers, tomato puree, paprika, sugar, salt, onions, sesame oil, vinegar, garlic, bay leaves and oregano

You should be able to buy canned chipotles in adobo at your grocer -look in the international foods isle.

TheSpiceHouse.com offers canned, as well as dried and powdered versions of chipotles.

If you’d like to make your own, I found this recipe that looks pretty authentic, but I haven’t tried it yet.