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This is not a potsticker recipe or siomai recipe. Although I will admit that the dumplings above are the ones that didn’t make it into those blog entries! It’s nice how they can be made in advance and just cooked on demand.

This post is actually all about my favorite sweet and spicy chili oil. Yes, it relevant to my 12 Months of Dim Sum project but no worries, this isn’t an early post for my May recipe. I will be cooking an actual dish for that. Or dessert. We’ll see!

This sweet and spicy chili oil recipe is adapted from Woon Heng’s 5-ingredient recipe here. Woon uses standard red chili pepper flakes in her recipe which uses non-Sichuan peppers but I opted to use Sichuan chili flakes to make them more compatible with Asian cooking. Because of my personal preference for, uh, less dry food (for lack of an actual better term), I also doubled the oil despite using the sediment as well.

When buying sweet and spicy chili oil at the store or even just using the chili oil at restaurants, I notice there to not be as much sediment as in this homemade one. I don’t know if it’s a cost-cutting tactic but I need the pepper flakes in my belly. I can’t just use oil in my food as I enjoy the texture of the rest of the ingredients. So being able to control the ingredients in this recipe without changing it too much has been incredibly helpful for me in the kitchen. The ratio of sediment to oil is almost 1:1 so it’s perfect for me.

Not all chili oils and chili sauces are interchangeable but I find this one to be something I can put on almost everything. I even put it on pizza!

So how do we make our sweet chili oil? Well we start off with our five ingredients: organic cane sugar, kosher salt, Sichuan chili flakes, light soy sauce and sesame oil.

We combine all of the ingredients, except the oil, in a heat-safe bowl and set it aside but close enough on a heat-safe surface.

We heat the oil in a sauce pan to 300°F at which point we turn off the heat and immediately but carefully pour the oil into the heat-safe bowl with the rest of the ingredients.

It will bubble so do it at a slow but steady pace so it doesn’t spill over the sides. Cleaning up oil stinks! Let cool for a few minutes before transferring to your sauce dispenser or a mason jar. Keep at room temperature for two weeks and then transfer to the fridge in an airtight container for 3-4 months.

But there you go! Some wonderfully sweet and spicy chili oil perfect on almost anything!

12 Months of Dim Sum Recipes:

January 2021: Vegan Siomai

February 2021: Instant Pot Congee

March 2021: Vegan Potstickers with Ginger Scallion Tofu

April 2021: Crispy Golden Fried Tofu

May 2021: Toasted Cumin Scallion Pancakes

June 2021: Gluten-Free Asian Dipping Sauce

Sweet and Spicy Chinese Chili Oil

Print Recipe

Author: Jan Carlisle @ Bakeroise

Ingredients

Scale

¼ cup or 20g crushed Sichuan pepper flakes
1 tablespoon light soy sauce (substitute with tamari or coconut aminos to make gluten-free)
1 teaspoon organic cane sugar
½ teaspoon salt
⅔ cup organic sesame oil

Instructions

Place all dry ingredients and soy sauce in a heat-safe bowl. Set aside but within reach.
Heat oil in a saucepan to around 300°F or 121°C. Once it reaches that temperature turn off heat.
Immediately but carefully pour the hot oil into the bowl with the rest of the ingredients. The mixture will bubble as the oil touches the other ingredients so proceed slowly to avoid spillage.
Let cool for 10 minutes before serving or storing in a container.