Roasted Chili Oil 2026

Szechuan Chili Oil

Chilis (all weights after deseeding)

• 90 g chile de árbol
• 64 g japones
• 62 g Kashmiri
• 29 g chipotle morita — darker and smokier than regular chipotle
• 50 g Korean gochugaru flakes

Aromatics

• 514 g shallots
• 186 g garlic
• 75 g ginger

Spices

• 55 g Szechuan peppercorns, split in half — half ground, half left whole (this is our tweak: upped the amount a bit and kept half whole)
• 19 g black peppercorns
• 12 g cumin
• 12 star anise pods
• 6 green cardamom pods
• 6 black cardamom pods

Seasoning

• 25 g Korean mushroom powder or Kalustyan's shiitake mushroom powder
• 40 g sugar
• 8 g MSG
• ¼ cup kosher salt, plus a big pinch the next morning — maybe another tablespoon, see the note at the end
• 1 tbsp honey
• 1 tbsp Better Than Bouillon, chicken

Oil

• 12 cups peanut or grapeseed oil

---

Deseeding yields

What you buy vs. what you end up with, from our January batch:

Chili	Raw	After deseeding
Kashmiri	100 g	62 g
Japones	80 g	64 g
Árbol	120 g	90 g
Chipotle morita	35 g	29 g
Gochugaru	—	50 g (already flakes)

Buy accordingly. The árbol loses the most.

---

Directions

Prep the alliums

Keep all three separate.

• Thinly slice the shallots on a mandoline. Set aside.
• Thinly slice the garlic on a mandoline. Set aside, away from the shallots.
• Grate the ginger. Set aside.

Prep the chilis

De-seed and de-stem all the chilis. Wear gloves, use kitchen shears. This is the tedious part — I do it on the porch and my nose still runs. I cut them lengthwise and knock the seeds out over a spider or a colander with holes big enough to drop the seeds and hold the chilis. The gochugaru is already flaked, so it skips this step entirely.

Grind them in batches in the coffee grinder you've retired from coffee duty. Fairly coarse. (I've thought about just buying pre-deseeded chili flakes. I haven't yet.)

Prep the spices

• Toast half the Szechuan peppercorns in cast iron and grind them medium to fine.
• Toast the other half in cast iron and leave them whole. Do it in batches, and don't over-toast.
• Toast and grind the cumin and black peppercorns, medium to fine.
• Halve the green and black cardamom pods and add them to a cheesecloth pouch with the star anise. Tie it securely. (The green pods cut easily. The black ones fight you.)

Load the bowl

Ground chilis, gochugaru, all the ground and whole spices, the mushroom powder, the sugar, the MSG, the salt, the grated ginger, the honey, and the Better Than Bouillon all go into the biggest heat-proof bowl you own. Tuck the cheesecloth pouch in there too. Everything goes in before the oil except the shallots and garlic. We bought a giant stainless bowl just for this.

Fry the alliums

Put the sliced shallots in a big pot and pour in the cold oil. Cold is important — it keeps them browning at the same rate. Kenji has the science.

Bring it to a boil, stirring constantly once it starts bubbling. When the shallots are nicely browned, strain them out. (Sorry, "nicely browned" is imprecise and you'd think I'd have taken a photo by now. Golden brown, not dark brown.)

Return the oil to the stove, add the garlic, and cook until browned — a little lighter than the shallots. Garlic turns bitter if you push it. Strain the garlic out and put the oil back on the heat.

The pour

Heat the oil to 375°F and pour it over everything in the bowl. Hold back the shallots and garlic. Stir well — the hot oil will dissolve the honey and the bouillon.

Rest and finish

Let the oil sit until cool. Overnight is better. I refrigerate the shallots and garlic overnight and leave the oil out at room temperature, then stir the alliums in the next morning — that's what keeps them extra crispy.

Taste the cool oil. I add a big pinch more kosher salt at this point, maybe a full tablespoon; it gives it the salty kick I want.

Oh — don't forget to fish out the cardamom/star anise pouch.

Enjoy.

---

Sourcing

Kalustyan's for the dried chilis and Szechuan peppercorns — 123 Lexington at 28th Street in NYC.

Online: árbol · japones · Kashmiri · chipotle morita · gochugaru · Szechuan peppercorns · shiitake mushroom powder · Korean mushroom powder