Stekovics Sweet Paprika Powder from Burgenland

Stekovics sweet paprika powder is a mild, fruity-sweet spice powder made from Pannonian paprika pods, which are dried on the plant and ground in three stages in a small stone mill. No industrial powder with stem and leaf components, but rather hand-cleaned pods from a single family in Burgenland.

Stekovics sweet paprika powder seasons your kitchen with the fruity-mild aroma of sun-dried paprika pods from the Pannonian Plain near Lake Neusiedl. Sweet means: no heat, lots of sweetness, lots of pod fruit. It comes to you in a 200-gram bag, bright red, finely ground, and so full of character that you can smell the difference from supermarket powder as soon as you open it.

Bright red, fruity-sweet, without heat

As soon as you tear open the bag, a warm, sweet-spicy scent rises to meet you — ripe paprika, a hint of tomato sunshine, a touch of wood. No hint of bitterness, no dusty hay scent, as you know it from cheaper powders.

On the palate, the sweet paprika reveals itself as a round, fruit-accented aroma that slowly unfolds in warm dishes and remains surprisingly direct in cold ones. Juicy, sunny, mild — and so color-intensive that even a small spoon will give your goulash the deep burgundy red that a good Pannonian dish has.

We like it with goulash, paprika cabbage, and cream cheese bread

The sweet powder is a reliable companion to Pannonian cuisine. In goulash, its sweetness only develops if you briefly sauté it in fat with onions — not too hot, otherwise it will become bitter.

You can add it generously to paprika cabbage, with caraway seeds and a dash of vinegar towards the end. We also like it for cold seasoning: sprinkled over potato salad, stirred into quark for a cream cheese sandwich with chives, or as a splash of color and aroma on an egg dish with soft pumpernickel. If you want to expand your spice rack, you'll find other single-origin spices with a similarly clear signature in our selection.

Store it in a dry, dark, and tightly sealed place — then the color brilliance will last for many months. A small screw-top storage jar in the spice cupboard, protected from light, is the best solution.

Stone mill in three stages, destemmed by hand

Erich Stekovics cultivates traditional paprika varieties on his fields in Frauenkirchen near Lake Neusiedl, which have been used in the Pannonian Plain for generations. The pods are allowed to dry on the plant — fully ripened, without mechanical haste.

Only then are they harvested, pod by pod, manually destemmed, and cleaned of leaf and stem residues with a knife. What industrial machines take with them — stems, green foliage, everything that dilutes the taste — remains in the field at Stekovics. This results in a powder made from pure pod fruit.

In a small mill, the dried material is then very carefully crushed in three stages with stone millstones. The gentler the grinding, the less friction heat is generated — and the better the essential oils of the pod are preserved in the powder. You can taste that. Once you've held such a paprika powder in your hand, you'll hardly want to see industrial spices anymore. All due respect.

Enjoyment tip

We like it classically in beef goulash — a small handful of powder directly into the soft-sautéed onions in the casserole, removed from the heat, briefly mixed with tomato paste, then only the meat and broth. This preserves the sweetness and the deep red color. A well-stocked Pannonian pantry also includes a grab of pickled tomatoes and paprika from our selection Pickled & Fermented.