Homemade chilli oil

I am a fire-eater, I put chilli oil on pretty much everything!!!! For lots of Asians, chilli oil is an essential oil in our daily diet. It adds a delightful kick to whatever dishes you are using it in. You can add it to dumpling, noodles, fried rice, pasta, stir-fry or sauté.

You may ask, with so many ready-made chilli oils out there, why should we make our own?

Firstly, most Asian chilli oil contains chicken fat, fish sauce, shrimp, dried scallops or shell powder unless it states it’s suitable for vegans.

Secondly, even if it is suitable for vegans if you look at the ingredients; you’ll most likely see a long list of synthetic chemical, MSG and artificial flavours like E621 E623, not nice.

Thirdly, most ready-made chilli oils contain soy sauce, so if you are gluten or soy intolerance, they’re probably not an ideal for you.

Making your own chilli oil is super easy, it only takes 5-10 minutes and you have a lovely gluten-free, soy-free, chemical-free homemade chilli oil.

Before I show you how, make sure you read my instructions really carefully before you do anything!!!!!! It’s best to take your time and follow my instructions very slowly and make sure you keep all your cooking equipment and containers dry and clean.

You may notice that I marked this 10 mins recipe as difficult. This isn’t a mistake, I marked it as difficult because I want you to understand that if you don’t do it right, you can hurt yourself very badly from boiling oil, especially if you don’t have much experience in the kitchen and with cooking.

OK, I don’t want to scare you off but I really don’t want anyone to get hurt from making this recipe, so it is better to be safe than sorry.

It is a lovely and simple recipe. Let’s start!

You need dried chilli flakes, sesame seeds, Sichuan peppercorns, bay leaf, star anise, ginger garlic and salt. You pretty much can get everything from the local supermarket. The Sichuan peppercorns can be found in most Chinese or Oriental supermarkets.

Add 50ml water to the dry chilli flakes, mix well and set aside. Let the chilli flakes soak in the water little bit. This prevents the chilli oil from turning bitter when boiled and also enhance the red colour of the chilli oil.

Slightly grind the sesame seeds with a mortar and set aside.

Thinly slice the ginger and garlic.

Heat 250ml oil in a saucepan over medium heat, then add Sichuan peppercorns, bay leaf, star anise, sliced garlic and ginger.

Heat until the garlic turns a lovely golden colour, that normally takes 3-4 minutes. Remove the saucepan from the heat and set aside.

Mix the sesame powder, salt and chilli flakes in a heatproof glass jar then place your glass jar onto a heatproof work surface such as metal, wooden or stone worktop, NOT PLASTIC, please!

Place a metal tea sieve on the glass jar.

And VERY SLOWLY pour in the hot oil.

Because the oil is so hot, it will sizzle and spit when it meets the chilli flakes, so you may need to stop a few times until you can fill the jar all the way.

Again, BE CAREFUL, the glass will be super hot now. please DO NOT TOUCH it for at least 15 minutes.

Take away the tea sieve and let the jar cool down completely and then you can seal it up and store in a cool place.

Freshly made chilli oil can taste relatively mild on the first or second day after cooking but chillies will continue to release their flavour over time, so the longer your store the oil the spicier it will become. If you keep your container and spoon clean this chilli oil can be stored for 2-3 months (no need to refrigerate). Be safe and enjoy this hot and spicy homemade chilli oil!

If you have followed and made this recipe, let me know! Leave a comment and take a picture, tagging it with #k33_kitchen and share it on Instagram! I’d be very excited to see what you come up with. Cheers, hope you enjoy my recipes!