Learn how to make Chinese chili oil (Chinese chili sauce), the essential seasoning for lots of Chinese cuisine, especially Szechuan style dishes. And Elaine gets the secrets of making the perfect Chinese chili oil with strong enough flavor and bright red color.
Chinese chili oil is also called red oil in China. It is a combined seasoning using red pepper, Sichuan peppercorn, mixed spices, ginger and toasted sesame seeds. High temperature oil is usually used to stimulate the strong aroma of red pepper powder. But meanwhile, it brings dark red color instead of bright red color. We will add red pepper powder by two batches, poured over by oil of different temperatures. High temperature oil can simulate the strong aroma while lower temperature oil brings us the 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.
About the spices
In Sichuan cuisine, spices play important roles. If you visit a Sichuan style restaurant selling Chongqing noodles, they use lots of spices 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.
Place around 5 tablespoons of red pepper powder in a bowl.
Heat the spices in oil over the slowest fire for around 5 minutes until the scallion white becomes slightly brown and you can smell the strong aroma. Filter all the spices out and leave the oil in the pot.
Re-heat the oil in the pot until slightly smoky and then pour half of the hot oil over the red pepper powder.
There will be large bubbles this time.
Add another 2 tablespoons of red pepper powder, 1 tablespoon of toasted sesame seed and 1/4 teaspoon Sichuan peppercorn in the bowl. Rest the left oil for around 3 minutes and pour the left half oil again.
The red oil will turn bright red after 24 hours.
Keep the chili oil in air-tight container and this can be kept up to one month in room temperature.
This chili oil can be directly used in following recipes.
- red oil wonton
- Poached Chicken with Chili Sauce (Saliva Chicken)
- Bon Bon Chicken
- Chinese coriander salad
- Dan Dan Noodles
- 7 tablespoons red pepper powder
- 1 tablespoon toasted white sesame seeds
- ¼ teaspoon Sichuan peppercorn
- 1 cup vegetable oil or ½ cup more for adjusting
- 1 thumb ginger (must)
- 2 bay leaves (must)
- 3 star anise (must)
- 1 bark Chinese cinnamon
- 3 scallion whites (must)
- ¼ teaspoon Sichuan peppercorn (must)
- 4 cloves
- ¼ teaspoon whole cumin seeds
- ⅛ teaspoon fennel seeds
- 1 Amomum tsao-ko (Cao Guo)
- 3 amomum kravanh (White Dou Kou)
- Heat the spices in oil over the slowest fire for around 5 minutes until the scallion white becomes slightly brown and you can smell the strong aroma. Filter all the spices out and leave the oil in the pot.
- Place around 5 tablespoons of red pepper powder in a bowl.
- Re-heat the oil in the pot until slightly smoky and then pour half of the hot oil over the red pepper powder. Rest the left oil for 5 minutes.
- Add another 2 tablespoons of red pepper powder, 1 tablespoon of toasted sesame seed and ¼ teaspoon Sichuan peppercorn in the bowl. Pour the left half oil again.
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.
Hi – how much and what type of oil do you use for this recipe? Many thanks.
Hi Sam,
You can use 1 cup or 1.5 cup of oil for this recipe. And I recommend sunflower seed oil or rapeseed oil.
They use whole peppers and lots of spices in the oil. But the spices are removed before mixing with pepper flakes.
I made this chili oil and it taste better than the restaurant made chili oils..thanks for sharing Elaine ; )
Thank you for your lovely comment.
Hi Deborah,
Each restaurant has its own recipe for chili oil. Some of them add spices, while others use peanuts and sesame to enhance the aroma. So I am sorry that I cannot provide the actual recipe of the restaurant you are referring. But I guess you can try my recipe and tell me the difference between the two and we can see whether we can get as closer as possible.
Hi Elaine,
first of all thank you for the great recipes. I have been to China several times and finally (with your help) I am able to cook some of my favorite recipes myself. I have a question concerning the Chili Oil. I used Korean Red Pepper Powder to make it. However, it turned out very light and not very spicy. Would you recommend to increas the amount of red pepper powder or to use another type of powder? Or am I wrong and the Oil is supposed to be mild?
谢谢你的帮助
Hi Jonny,
Korean red pepper powder is not spicy enough. You need to change the pepper powders. This one is what we use in for chili oil in China.
Thank you!
Can I use olive oil or it’s not recommended?
No, olive oil is not a good option. You can use canola oil, rapeseed oil or sunflower seed oil.
Thanks Elaine. Can you explain why? I’m just interested.
Comparing with other oil recommended here, olive oil has a lower smoking point. But we need to heat the oil really hot in order to extract the flavors from the spices. Olive oil is not used to make Chinese chili oil in Chinese cuisine. If possible, you can test with a small batch and I am interested with the the result.
I just tried making your oil. So happy to have stumbled onto your recipe! I just have a few questions. My scallion whites did not become slightly brown until around 30 minutes on the fire. Is that too long to have the spices in the oil or too long for the oil to be on the fire? Also what does it mean when you say the oil becomes slightly smokey? I am quite the novice in the kitchen.
Thanks again for the great recipe!
You are the most welcome, DJ. I have so happy to be helpful. Happy cooking.
Hey there, i followed the recipe and after 24 hours my oil didn’t get the red coloring. So I am.not sure what might have gone wrong
Dear Elaine,
A belated Happy New Year to you and family. For as long as I can remember, I have always bought bottles of Chinese Chili Oil. Most of them were too spicy to consume and I ended throwing them away only to buy another brand.
Last month I decided to put this to an end and make my own. Your recipe was the first one to come to my mind. I used the following spices:
Chao Tian Jiao, 朝天椒
Qing Hua Jiao, 青花椒
Da Hong Pao Hua Jiao, 大红袍花椒
Xiang La La Jiao Mian, 香辣辣椒面
Deng Long Jiao, 灯笼椒
I bought a bag of each and using the ingredients in your recipe, I made two cups of the Chinese Chili Oil. I followed step-by-step your instructions. Let me tell you this. The oil was out of this world, spicy but fragrant, unlike the bottles that I used to buy. The oil (I used pure canola oil) has a great taste, spicy but not overwhelming. It was well worth making this Chinese Chili Oil.
I think the secret was all those aromatic ingredients listed in your recipe that makes this oil so fragrant and delicious. I kick myself in the rear for not trying to the Chinese Chili Oil much sooner.
All I can say to you is THANK YOU VERY MUCH for this recipe. No more store bought Chinese Chili Oil, only Elaine’s Chinese Chili Oil.
Thanks Steve,
This should be the best ever comment I have already read. Combining different types of chili peppers in Chili oil is quite popular in restaurants, they give the chili oil different aromas and red colors.
Dear Elaine,
I cannot keep up making small batches of the Chinese Chili Oil, one or two cups at a time. So this time (last Sunday), I decided to make 4+ liters (about 1.5 gallons) of this heavenly oil. I had two burners going on simultaneously to cut down on time. Again, I followed your recipe and I used a combination of the red Chinese Chilies. I bought large bags of the chilies (2 kg or 5 lbs.) bags. My grandchildren put oil on omelettes, fish, steamed vegetables, grilled cheese sandwich. Anything I serve, they put the chili oil on it. I used pure 100% canola oil. Again, the chili oil was spicy but not too spicy and very fragrant. Some cooks use grapeseed oil, what do you think?
Once again, I like to THANK YOU for this heavenly recipe for Chinese Chili Oil.
This is yummy. Would appreciate some recipes to use it? Specifically meat.
There are lots of Sichuan dishes calls for homemade chili oil. Check red oil wonton, spicy potato salad, dan dan noodles.
hi, my chili oil did not come out very spicy, any reasons why? i used the full amount but i also toasted them in a wok first, could that be why?
Thomas,
Are you using flakes or powders? How hot your oil is when pouring? Toasting the peppers in wok firstly can help to add some crispiness to the chili oil.