Skip to main content
Support

Browse by category

All categories
Home

Sauces and condiments from Myōkō

Kanzuri (snow-bleached fermented chilli paste)かんずり

Kanzuri is a red chilli paste from snowy Myōkō in Niigata. Salted local chillies are laid out on the snow for a few days in the coldest part of winter, then ground with rice koji, yuzu and salt and left to ferment for three years.

Fully documentedSauces and condiments3 years

Recipe

Kanzuri (snow-bleached fermented chilli paste), a photo from Wikimedia Commons
Photo: CurryTime7-24, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Amounts from a sourceThe producer's recipe on the MAFF page gives only the salt level; the other proportions are not published.
Red chilliesGrown in Myōkō by the maker and by contract farmers, from seed the maker has saved for years[kanzuri-co][maff-kanzuri]
Rice koji[maff-kanzuri]
Yuzu[maff-kanzuri]
Salt11 %[maff-kanzuri]
Starterrice koji

Total time across the recorded steps: 3 years

Start
Drag the bar or press Play

What changes: Starting material: ripe red chillies from local farms

Step 1 of 5
Plant and harvest the chillies
Time
Planted in May; harvested from August to November
Reported
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Moulds

Output: ripe red chillies.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
bright red

Microbes at work in this step

Not documented for this step.

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

At a glance

Kanzuri is a red chilli paste from snowy Myōkō in Niigata. Salted local chillies are laid out on the snow for a few days in the coldest part of winter, then ground with rice koji, yuzu and salt and left to ferment for three years. Made in 5 steps over 3 years. The longest step, ferment and mature, takes 3 years (MAFF). Salt is 11 % (MAFF).

Key numbers
Main step3 yearsReported[maff-kanzuri][jt2026]Ferment and mature
Salt11 %Reported[maff-kanzuri]Grind and mix with koji, yuzu and salt

What makes this one different

Yuzukoshō is a fresh salted chilli and yuzu-peel paste. Kanzuri adds rice koji, bleaches the salted chillies on snow first, and ferments for three years.

Related ferments

Safety

The MAFF recipe uses 11 % salt and a three-year ferment.

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

Legend says the warlord Uesugi Kenshin brought chillies from Kyoto and gave them to the farmers. At first the paste was simply ground chilli mixed with miso. It was eaten to warm the body in this very snowy district.

Microbes
No study we found names its microbes.
  1. [maff-kanzuri] MAFF, うちの郷土料理 (Our regional cuisines), かんずり 新潟県 (recipe supplied by Kanzuri Co.)gov
  2. [kanzuri-co] Kanzuri Co. (有限会社かんずり), 「かんずり」ができるまで (how kanzuri is made), maker's official siteweb
  3. [jt2026] Jōetsu Town Journal 2026, 風雪にトウガラシ舞う 妙高市のスキー場で「かんずり」雪さらし (news report, 20 January 2026)web