Chili crunch time

Asian condiment goes with everything, and it’s easy to make at home

I used to be a chile-oil hoarder. Whenever I ordered Chinese takeout, I requested extra containers of hot chile oil — ground dried chile pepper flakes and seeds steeped in fireball-red oil. I’d combine them into a separate jar I topped with neutral oil so I’d always have a stash in my fridge — as important as good soy sauce and Asian vinegars in my homemade Asian cooking repertoire.

It wasn’t until the pandemic, when my cravings for takeout Chinese food grew more intense, that I discovered the burgeoning realm of chile crisp sauces.

Chile crisp, or sometimes called chili crunch, is a more full-flavored and texturally superior version of the chile oil I was hoarding. Made with crushed and ground dried chile pods, fried shallots and garlic, sesame seeds or chopped peanuts, and spices steeped in a neutral oil (vegetable, canola, peanut), chile crisp has become my favorite condiment, it makes everything better — noodles, dumplings, ramen soups, stir-fry dishes, scrambled eggs, pizza, even fried chicken.

My first store-bought chile crisp turned out to be the standard-bearer: Lao Gan Ma, the Chinese company that makes a variety of chile sauces. Soon, I started seeing a variety of chile crisp sauces available online. That was followed by a wealth of recipes for homemade chile crisp.

Game on. Most recipes called for ingredients available at supermarkets: dried chile pods, chile pepper flakes, garlic, shallots and spices such as cinnamon sticks and whole star anise. The only thing I had to mail-order was Sichuan peppercorns.

What I quickly discovered is there’s really no way to falter. Cook shallots and garlic in neutral oil and add to ground chiles or red-pepper flakes along with desired spices, a bit of sugar and salt — and boom! You have homemade crisp and crunch. Make it as hot as you want; add more oil if you like a soupier version.

Today, I no longer have to hoard chile oil.

If you prefer to buy chile crisp, here are several to try:

Fly By Jing Sichuan Chili Crisp:

This crisp, endorsed by Milk Street’s Christopher Kimball and sold on the company’s carefully curated site for pantry and kitchen essentials (store.177milk street.com), is a condiment with added umami. The chile sauce is made with preserved black beans, mushroom powder, seaweed and sesame oil, which provides an additional depth of flavor. Crafted in Chengdu, China, it is savory and intensely hot, with a lovely texture, and chile pepper and Sichuan pepper punch. About $15 per jar from flybyjing.com.

Momofuku Chili Crunch: David Chang, the superchef whose Momofuku empire pretty much changed the way we understand modern Asian cuisine, makes a mean chile crunch.

Made with three types of Mexican dried chiles, his nubby elixir also includes onions, garlic, shallots, sesame seeds, seaweed and coconut sugar. It’s a perfect, punchy chile crisp that you’ll want to put on everything. About $12 per jar at shop.momofuku.com.

Lao Gan Ma Spicy Chili Crisp: This nubby Chinese chile oil, widely available at Asian supermarkets, is a medium-heat condiment perfect for everyday noodles, fried rice, dumplings and stir-fry dishes. Packed with ground dried chiles and peanuts in soybean oil, it is a savory, spicy, chunky sauce — a go-to standard that has been called the Heinz ketchup of the chile-crisp world.

Greg Morago / Staff Chile crisp, or chili crunch, is made with crushed and ground dried chile pods, Sichuan peppercorns, fried shallots and garlic, sesame seeds or chopped peanuts, and spices steeped in neutral oil.