Szechuan pepper (also written as sechuan pepper or sichuan pepper) is often mistaken for a ‘real’ pepper, but botanically that isn’t correct. It’s not related to black pepper or chili pepper, but is a spice with its own character — and a remarkable effect on your taste buds.
In this blog you’ll read what Szechuan pepper actually is, where it comes from, why it tastes so different from other peppers and how to use it in your kitchen.
What exactly is Szechuan pepper?
Despite the name, Szechuan pepper does not belong to the classic pepper families. Broadly speaking we distinguish three groups of ‘true’ peppers:
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Black pepper – the genus Piper (family Piperaceae)
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Chili peppers – the genus Capsicum (family Solanaceae)
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Allspice – the genus Pimenta (family Myrtaceae)
Szechuan pepper belongs to none of these three. It is the dried husk of the fruit of plants from the genus Zanthoxylum, notably:
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Zanthoxylum piperitum
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Zanthoxylum simulans
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Zanthoxylum schinifolium
The spice is named after the Chinese