How To Make Chile Crisp

Watch A Video

Here is a video of 2 Cooks in the Kitchen making Chile Crisp:

https://youtu.be/0Lq38iJBvkg

Ingredients For Chile Crisp

• 1 1/2 Cups Peanut Oil
• 2 Serranos, chopped
• 1 Head Garlic, peeled and chopped
• 1/4 Onion, diced small
• 1/3 Cup Dried Scallops, chopped
• 1 Cinnamon Stick
• 4 Star Anise
• 1 tsp Black Peppercorns or Szechuan Peppercorns
• 1 Tbls Cayenne
• 1/3 Cup Red Chile Flakes
• 1 tsp Sugar
• 1 Tbls Tamari
• 1/2 tsp Salt

Put the Oil In A Saucepan

We’ll start by putting the oil into a small saucepan. We like to use peanut oil because it adds a nice flavor to our chile crisp but you can use any oil you prefer.

Serrano, Garlic, Onion, Scallops

To our oil we will add the chopped serranos, garlic, onion and dried scallops. We have chopped these all fairly small but not too fine so there is some bite to them. You might find dried scallops at a local Asian store but we ordered ours from Amazon.

Spices

Now we’ll add the spices to get their flavor into the oil. We’re using a cinnamon stick, star anise and black peppercorns. You can use szechuan pepper for this if you want.

Simmer 30 Minutes

We’ll put the pan on the burner, bring it to a simmer and let it simmer slowly for at least 30 minutes. We want to get these ingredients nicely browned without burning them.

Prepare The Chile Flakes

While the oil is simmering we will put the chile flakes in a heat proof container. We have a glass Pyrex 4 cup measuring cup that works well for this. You can use anything metal or glass that can tolerate having 300° oil poured into it.

Cayenne, Sugar, Tamari and Salt

Next we’ll add our other ingredients to the chile flakes. We’re adding some cayenne for a little extra heat and a little sugar, tamari and salt to bring out all the other flavors. We are using tamari to add umami because it is gluten free. We’re also using our Kona Deep Sea Salt.

Strain the Oil

Once our garlic is nicely browned we want to bring the oil temperature up to 300°. As soon as it gets up to temperature we will strain it into our chile flakes through a metal fine mesh strainer. If the oil is hot enough this will boil and cook the chile flakes. We’ll reserve all the solids that end up in the strainer.

Add The Solids Back In

We’ll let the solids cool a bit which helps them get crispier. We’ll discard the star anise and cinnamon stick and then add the cooled solids back into the oil.

Store In Jars And Enjoy

We store our chile crisp in jars for a couple months – if it lasts that long! We put it on eggs, vegetables, you can use it on pasta or meat. It’s a great condiment to add spice and umami.

You might also like our chile oil recipe for another spicy condiment.

If you enjoyed this recipe subscribe to our Youtube Channel and share on social media. Leave us a message and let us know of any other recipes you’d like to see us work on.

Print