Learn how to make Chinese chili oil (Chinese chili sauce), the essential seasoning for lots of Chinese cuisines, especially Szechuan-style dishes. And Elaine gets the secrets of making the perfect Chinese chili oil with strong enough flavor and bright red color.
What’s Chinese red oil
Chinese chili oil is also called red oil in China. It combines seasoning using red pepper, Sichuan peppercorn, mixed spices, ginger, and toasted sesame seeds. High-temperature oil is usually used to stimulate the pungent aroma of red pepper powder. But meanwhile, it brings dark red color instead of bright red color. We will add red pepper powder in two batches, poured over with oil at different temperatures. High-temperature oil can simulate a strong aroma while lower-temperature oil brings us a bright red color. Traditionally people in Sichuan first toast red peppers and then break them by hand using a stone grinder. But now we directly buy red pepper powders from the supermarket and this homemade Chinese chili oil can be finished within 10 minutes.
Types of pepper flakes
Our most concerns about the pepper flakes are how spicy they are, the aromatics, and the color. We love to combine different types, 3 even 4 types, of chili peppers to make the flakes for chili oil. Just for your information, I love to mix Er Jing Tiao (aroma and color), Bullet Head (aroma), and Facing heaven(hotness). If you are in the US, you can go to this shop and find those ingredients.
But it is ok to use easy-to-find chili flakes, even not-so-hot types can work fine with this chili oil. I use a store-bought toasted chili flake and the result is quite amazing too. So my suggestion is to use your familiar type. But read the instruction and see whether the chili pepper is toasted already. If not yet, pan-fry the pepper flakes over a slow fire until aromatic. “Toasting in a small amount of oil” is the key factor that influences the taste and flavor.
A tip about keeping the color
One of the common failures of making chili oil might be the bitter taste bought by the over-high oil temperature. At the same time, the lovely bright red color will be lost too. On one hand, we need the oil to be hot enough to activate the aroma of the pepper flakes, on the other hand, we need to be very careful to avoid burned pepper flakes. When where is the balance? It is extremely hard to control this if you only chili oil only once a time or even twice. This experience can only be formed hundreds of times. So here comes my solution!
It is extremely simple and I am amazed by the result. Prepare some clean water (or boiled water after cooked) and wet the pepper flakes first. This method has also been used in Laziji, a local popular mala chicken. We soak the chili peppers first before using them to avoid them turning dark in the later pan-frying process. That’s the magic!!
However, if you want the chili oil to be crispy a little bit, then you should skip mixing the water. You can try both types and see which type is best for you.
About the spices
In Sichuan cuisine, spices play important roles. If you visit a Sichuan-style restaurant selling Chongqing noodles, they use lots of herbs in the hot oil. It is ok to skip some of the spices but at least you need to prepare ginger, bay leaves, scallion white, star anise, Chinese cinnamon, Sichuan peppercorn, and cloves.
Instructions
Place around 1 cup of red pepper powder in a bowl. Mix in water if you prefer. Or you can skip this for a more crispy version.
Pour around 3 cups of oil into a wok, add scallion, coriander, white onion, and smashed ginger first because they contain water. Heat over a slow fire until the aromatics begin to wither.
Continue heating with slow fire for another 6 to 8 minutes until the contents are all withered and browned.
Take out all of the spices and aromatics.
Heat the oil for another 2 or 3 minutes until slightly smoky. Pour 1/3 of the oil into the bowl.
Mix to combine.
Repeat the above process twice to add all oil to the pepper flakes.
Add toasted sesame seeds. You can also add toasted peanuts too.
Keep the chili oil in an air-tight container and this can be kept for up to one month at room temperature.
This chili oil can be directly used in the following recipes.
- Red oil wonton
- Poached Chicken with Chili Sauce (Saliva Chicken)
- Bon Bon Chicken
- Chinese coriander salad
- Dan Dan Noodles
- Szechuan dumplings
- Chinese smashed cucumber
- hot and sour lotus root salad
- Sichuan-style pork in garlic sauce
Chinese Chili Oil
Ingredients
- 1 cup red pepper flakes ,Sichuan style pepper flakes is fried before curshing
- 3 tbsp. water , optional
- 2 tbsp. toasted white sesame seeds
- 3 cups vegetable oil
Spices (it is ok to skip some of the spices, but keep the musts)
- 1 thumb ginger ,must
- 3 bay leaves ,must
- 4 star anise ,must
- 1 bark Chinese cinnamon
- 3 scallion whites ,must
- 1 tsp. Sichuan peppercorn ,must
- 8 whole white pepper
- 1 Amomum tsao-ko ,Cao Guo
- 3 amomum kravanh ,White Dou Kou
Instructions
- Place around 1 cup of red pepper powder in a bowl. Stir in 3 tablespoons of clean water. Combine and let the pepper flakes absorb the water. If you want a crispy version, then skip mixing in the water.
- Pour around 3 cups of oil into a wok, add scallion, coriander, white onion, and smashed ginger first because they contain water. Heat over a slow fire until the aromatics begin to wither. Place all the spices in.
- Heat the oil for another 2 or 3 minutes until slightly smoky. Pour ⅓ of the oil to the bowl. Mix to combine.
- Repeat the above process twice to add all oil to the pepper flakes. Add toasted sesame seeds.
- Keep the chili oil in an air-tight container and this can be kept for up to one month at room temperature.
Hi. Love the look of this recipe and would really enjoy giving it a go. One quick question, what does ‘until the scallion white becomes white’ mean? It’s already white! Clarification would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.
Updated Paul.
Hi Elaine. Thanks so much. Love the beautiful photography, stunning recipes. I’ll be giving this a go this evening. Thanks again for the update
Thank you Paul for the kind correctness and warm words.
hi! mine did not created bubbles. is that fine? I poured it in a mason jar. is that a factor? thanks!
No worries.
I have made this a few times and it is excellent!. I have tried adding a bit of fresh minced garlic and ginger to the chilli just before adding the hot oil which works well too. Thanks for a great recipe
Thanks Richard for the feedback. Adding garlic and ginger is a great option. But you will need to use them up in a relative shorter time.
Hey! It really looks fantastic, one question though. I have made me some homemade roasted chili powder, would it be fine to use or do you think it will add some other flavour to the sauce?
Hi there,
Homemade roasted chili powder works perfectly for this recipe.
I make chili oil from another more complicated recipe. Will try yours, looks like it might bring good results. Only thing is, I use fresh chilis that I dried for several days in a dryer, then heat them in a bit of oil until a caramel flavor fills the room, they should not blacken, though, then I chop them – I simply love that smell in the kitchen! If it makes a difference I do not know.
Hi Hotcha,
I have not tried your way. But our traditional way is to toast dried peppers until there is a strong aroma around. And then smash it with a classic stone mortar before adding hot oil. I believe your method is similar. You must be a spicy food lover. Lots of people really do not like the smell that much. Thanks for sharing your method with you. Happy cooking.
Elaine, would you mind sharing a recipe with all the spices you used in the photo? I’m looking to go all out 🙂
Hi Ashley,
Besides the spices I listed in the ingredients sections, I also use fennel seeds: 3g, 3 Nutmegs and 1 cardamom. I will update them in the recipe list too. Thanks for your suggestion.
This recipe is really really great! I love my oil <3
Hi, Autumn
I love it too. Chinese Chili Oil is necessary for Sichuan style food and dishes.
s in salt; or the density of various flours.
This would make for a more precise first effort on the part of the reader.
This oil is great but too spicy hot for me. Anyway to make it mild without compromising all the flavours? A restaurant near me makes it. It’s very tasty but not spicy. They won’t give me the recipe. Can you help?
Hi Rosanne,
If you want to reduce the hotness, you can toast the chili peppers firstly before grounding, which is commonly used by restaurant in Sichuan.
Hello Elaine,
I would like to use the all the ingredients that you used as I like my chilli oil nice and aromatic. Your recipe says that you used 1 cadamom and 3 amomum cardamom pods. But in the picture, it looks like you used….1 amomum cardamom(black cardamom or cao guo) and 3 cardamom(small and green). Could you confirm which one it is?
Hi Prashant,
Yes, I use 1 cao Guo and 3 amomum kravanh (bai kou).
Can you share the brand of red pepper powder you use? I just have an H-Mart near me and there have so many different kinds of red pepper powder.
Hi Betty,
I use very common red pepper flakes I found in China. So I believe the brand information is not useful to you. Remember to choose pepper flakes or coarse powder.