Smoked Paprika (Ground)

One US cup of smoked paprika (ground) weighs 108.8 grams. Going the other way, 100 grams is about 0.92 cups.

Also called smoked paprika, Spanish smoked paprika, pimenton de la vera, pimentón de la Vera, sweet smoked paprika, hot smoked paprika, bittersweet smoked paprika, smoked pimenton.

A US cup of smoked paprika weighs 109 grams, the same as plain ground paprika, because smoking changes flavor and color but not how the powder packs, and the one foodservice source that covers both treats them as identical.

Smoked paprika is ground Capsicum annuum pods that are dried over smoldering wood, usually oak, before milling. The benchmark product is Spain's Pimentón de la Vera, a protected designation of origin from the La Vera district of Extremadura, where La Chinata is the most widely exported brand. It is sold as sweet (dulce), bittersweet (agridulce), and hot (picante). US spice houses including McCormick, Simply Organic, and Frontier Co-op sell their own oak-smoked versions. Plain paprika, by contrast, is dried without smoke.

There is no separate USDA reference weight for smoked paprika. A foodservice conversion table built from measurements across several vendors states that smoked paprika follows the same conversion as regular paprika, which it measures at 3.84 ounces per cup, or 108.9 grams. USDA's reference for plain ground paprika is 108.8 grams per cup. This entry anchors to that USDA figure as a physical analog.

Using the plain paprika figure is a physical judgment, not a shortcut. Smoking is a drying method. The ground result is the same flaky, fibrous pepper-wall powder with the same thin oil film that makes plain paprika tacky, humidity-sensitive, and compressible under a scoop. Nothing in the smoking step plausibly changes particle shape or composition enough to shift bulk density. Confidence is medium rather than high because no direct cup measurement of smoked paprika specifically has been published.

Retail labels are a trap here. McCormick's smoked paprika panel lists a quarter teaspoon as 1 gram, while its plain paprika panel lists a quarter teaspoon as 0.5 grams. Taken literally, that implies 192 versus 96 grams per cup for nearly identical products. The true weight of a quarter teaspoon at 109 grams per cup is about 0.57 grams: round it to the nearest half gram and you print 0.5, round it up to a whole gram and you print 1. Both labels are correct roundings of the same weight, and neither is density data. Simply Organic's smoked paprika label, at 2 grams per teaspoon, is the same story, a true 2.3 grams rounded to the whole gram. None of these label figures is used here.

For measuring, smoked and plain paprika are interchangeable by volume: 2.3 grams per teaspoon and 6.8 grams per tablespoon. For flavor they are not interchangeable, since smoked paprika is intense and a recipe that calls for it wants the smoke. Bloom it briefly in fat to release color and aroma, but pull it before it browns, because paprika scorches quickly and turns bitter. Spoon and level without pressing, break up clumps first, and keep the tin sealed.