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 flakes ,Sichuan style pepper flakes is fried before curshing
- 1 tablespoon toasted white sesame seeds
- 1/4 teaspoon Sichuan peppercorn
- 1 cup vegetable oil or 1/2 cup more for adjusting
- 1 thumb ginger ,must
- 2 bay leaves ,must
- 3 star anise ,must
- 1 bark Chinese cinnamon
- 3 scallion whites ,must
- 1/4 teaspoon Sichuan peppercorn ,must
- 4 cloves
- 1/4 teaspoon whole cumin seeds
- 1/8 teaspoon fennel seeds
- 1 Amomum tsao-ko ,Cao Guo
- 3 amomum kravanh ,White Dou Kou
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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.
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Place around 5 tablespoons of red pepper powder in a bowl.
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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.
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Add another 2 tablespoons of red pepper powder, 1 tablespoon of toasted sesame seed and 1/4 teaspoon Sichuan peppercorn in the bowl. Pour the left half oil again.
The nutrition facts is calculated based on one bottom of the oil
Made my chili oil for the first time last week and it turned out delicious!! followed the recipe (with all of the added spices) but didn’t have sichuan chili flakes so I settled for thai chili flakes. My oil turned out a beautifully deep red color and full of flavor and spice. I loved it and will stick to making my own chili oil from here on out. Thank you!
Thank you Xia for your lovely feedback. With all of the spices added, wow, I feel I can smell the aromatic in front of the screen. Happy cooking and enjoy your journey of making yummy dishes with chili oil.
I have just learning about chill oil I will be using these ingredients! Thank s
Impossible d’avoir les 2 derniers éléments en France. J’ai de la cardamone noire ,mais cela ne fera pas l’affaire, car le goût est camphré et pas fumé. Bisous et merci Chris 06
Just made a batch for myself and my parents for Xmas and it turned out delicious!
Good Job! Adam. I love to use it on roasted chicken recently.
Hi Elaine-
I am looking forward to making this but I have a question: how much of the Chinese Cinnamon Bark should I use, and do you recommend a specific brand?
Kraig,
Use a very small piece of Chinese cinnamon , usually we use 1cm * 2 cm piece, otherwise, it might bring bitterness to the red oil.
Thank you for the reply. I made this yesterday using ALL of the spices and I cannot say how much I love this recipe! I used extra peppercorns as I love the numbing effect they give but it didnt seem to come through very well. I used this on my eggs this morning and the flavor is just incredible.
Looks like a great recipe. I have a recipe for a Sichuan chili oil (from a Sichuan cookbook) that only asks for some ginger and none of the other spices. I had thought that this is supposed to be a somewhat neutral chili oil, so it can go with any number of dishes but I may be mistaken? The other recipe I have now sounds bland in comparison, but perhaps offers a nice subtle flavor and this one is only supposed to go with very specific dishes? What are your thoughts? Which is preferred most commonly in Sichuan cooking?
Paula,
All the versions you mentioned is popular in Sichuan. Some chili oil uses less spices while others use more. The recipe of everything restaurants, every housewife might be different here in Sichuan. So you can make smaller batches and find your favorite version.
Under ingredients, says 7 tablespoons red pepper flakes but step 2 in the instructions says 5 tablespoons red pepper powder. ??????? which one is correct?
thank you
The peppers are divided into two batches. Please read the instructions carefully.
I made this yesterday to use with beef and coriander wontons and it was phenomenal. The layers of subtlety were out of this world and while it was spicy, it wasn’t so spicy you couldn’t enjoy a generous spoonful on wontons. The two different temperatures of oil when pouring over the chili flakes and the low infusion temperature of the spices was perfect. Thank you!
Thanks Emelee! You get the point. Happy cooking!