Chipotle This is a smoke-dried jalapeno. Small, wrinkled and light brown, chipotles have an incredibly rich, smoky flavor and are usually very hot. Smoking is a method of preserving jalapenos that was already common in Mexico when the Spanish first arrived. The original Nahuatl spelling, chilpotle, is also sometimes seen. We prefer to use dried chipotles, but you can also buy them canned.
Canned chipotles are acceptable in most recipes.
Obviously, you can't make chile powder from canned chipotles, but you can use them for purees. Canned chipotles are already soaked in some kind of sauce, usually the vinegary adobo sauce. Just stem and seed them and puree them with some of the sauce from the can.