Chorizo

Chorizo is a Spanish cured sausage of pork and fat, salted, kneaded, stuffed and then cured and matured, sometimes fermented and sometimes smoked. Spanish law makes paprika its defining ingredient, which gives the red colour; without paprika it must be sold as «chorizo blanco». Two names are protected in the EU: Chorizo de Cantimpalos and Chorizo Riojano. ¹²³

What the law says. Spain's 2014 quality standard puts chorizo, longaniza, chistorra and morcón in one group: meat and fat, coarsely or finely minced, salted, seasoned with paprika, stuffed into natural or artificial casings and cured. The sales name must add a term for the shape, casing or method and name the species if the meat is not pork. Salchichón, by contrast, is seasoned with pepper, and fuet is a thin salchichón with a whitish coat of mould. ¹

Cantimpalos and its zone. A sausage industry grew up around the village of Cantimpalos in Segovia from about 1900; letters from 1928 and 1933 record shipments to Mexico in metal tins under oil, and one dated 12 May 1928 already warns of imitations. The zone covers 2,574 km² of Segovian municipalities on the northern slope of the Guadarrama, above 900 m, with fewer than 15 foggy days a year. The PGI was registered by Regulation (EU) 533/2011, and the specification was revised in 2023. ²⁴

Pigs and meat. Cantimpalos uses white-breed pigs, with males castrated, fed at least 75% barley, wheat and rye in the last three months, slaughtered at 6.5–10 months with a carcass of 90–140 kg. The mix is 70–80% lean and 20–30% fat from belly, neck, trimmings and boned ham and shoulder; back fat is not allowed, nor meat that has been frozen or kept chilled for more than six days, and the fat must contain at least 13% stearic acid. ²

Paprika, salt and time. Each kilo of meat takes 18–25 g of paprika, at least half of it Pimentón de La Vera PDO, and 15–22 g of sea salt, with up to 4 g of garlic and 0.2 g of oregano; preservatives are banned. The mince rests 12–36 hours at 2–7 °C, is stuffed and tied with red, black and white string, then matures at 6–16 °C and dries for more than 40% of its time in natural driers. Curing lasts at least 21 days for the thin sarta, 24 for the achorizado string and 40 for the thick cular and the torpedo for slicing, with at least 25% weight loss. ²

Inside a Cantimpalos. The finished sausage holds 20–40% moisture, at most 57% fat and at least 30% protein in the dry matter, with salt up to 6% of the dry matter and a pH of 5.0–6.0. The cut is intense red dotted with reddish-white fat, no piece of fat larger than 0.5 cm; the taste is juicy, slightly acidic and not hot. It may be sold whole, in pieces or sliced, vacuum-packed, under modified atmosphere or in glass jars of oil. ²

Chorizo Riojano. Only extra-category chorizo made anywhere in La Rioja qualifies: lean from white pigs, rindless belly, fine salt, 100% extra paprika and fresh peeled garlic in natural pig casings, 30–40 mm thick and at least 200 g. The mince rests 12–24 hours at 0–6 °C, the sausage is tied with white cotton cord, red if it is hot, and matures hanging at no more than 16 °C, or up to 20 °C in natural driers; nitrate is capped at 100 ppm and nitrite at 20 ppm. Across the EU, since 9 October 2025 dry sausages may receive at most 80 mg/kg of added nitrite, down from 150. ³⁶

History in La Rioja. The Riojano specification recalls a village custom from 1744 of raffling a pig fattened by all the neighbours, a first hygiene regulation for butchers in 1865, and the first sausage factory in Logroño recorded in 1890. Chorizo had to last until the autumn grape harvest: it hung in airy lofts, sometimes wrapped in kraft paper or kept in jars made by the potters of Navarrete. ³

Why it matters to you. The string and the back label tell you in a second whether you hold a PGI chorizo, and the Riojano specification puts its chorizo at about 440 kcal and 35–40% fat per 100 g, so thin slices make sense. A whole dry sausage keeps 6 weeks in the pantry and 3 weeks in the fridge once opened. Compare Fuet and the family on Dry-cured sausages and Cured meats & charcuterie. ²³⁵ WHO classes processed meat, including cured sausages, as carcinogenic to humans, with risk growing with the amount eaten. ⁷