A málà chile oil with crunch: three dried chiles ground with Sichuan pepper, spices and mushroom powder, scalded with 375 °F oil, then loaded with fried shallots, fried garlic and peanuts.
Untested: not yet made in this kitchen. It is here for the Peppers and Hot Sauce pages and is adapted from the source named in the Notes.
Ingredients
- 27 g (1 cup) dried árbol chiles, stems removed
- 20 g (¾ cup) dried chiles japones, stems removed
- 25 g (¾ cup) dried Kashmiri red chiles, stems removed
- ½ cup (50 g) roasted, salted peanuts, chopped
- 1 two-inch piece (30 g) fresh ginger, sliced into thin matchsticks
- 3 pieces whole star anise
- 2 red or black cardamom pods, split in half
- 3 tablespoons (28 g) freshly ground Sichuan peppercorn
- 3 tablespoons (12 g) porcini or shiitake mushroom powder
- 2 tablespoons (20 g) sugar
- 5 teaspoons (30 g) Diamond Crystal kosher salt (for table salt, about half as much by volume or the same by weight)
- 2 teaspoons (6 g) freshly ground cumin
- 1 teaspoon (4 g) MSG (optional)
- ¾ teaspoon (2 g) freshly ground black pepper
- 2½ cups (500 g) peanut oil, or any other neutral oil
- 2 cups (200 g) thinly sliced shallots (about 1 mm thick)
- ¾ cup (65 g) thinly sliced garlic (about 1 mm thick)
Directions
Key ingredients
- Wear gloves. Cut the chiles open and shake out most of the seeds over a rack, then grind the chiles just coarser than chile flakes into a heatproof vessel that holds at least 4 quarts, because the hot oil will bubble up hard.
- Add the peanuts, ginger, star anise, cardamom, Sichuan pepper, mushroom powder, sugar, salt, cumin, MSG and black pepper to the ground chiles.
- Put the shallots and oil in a saucepan, set it over high heat and fry, stirring, until the shallots are light golden. Strain them out and set them aside, keeping the oil.
- Fry the garlic in the same oil over medium-low heat until light golden, stopping long before it reaches golden brown, when it turns bitter. Strain it out and set it aside.
- Heat the oil to 375 °F (190 °C), pour it over the chile mixture and stir. Let it cool completely, about 30 minutes.
- Remove the star anise and cardamom, stir in the fried shallots and garlic, and jar the chili crisp. Refrigerate it; it is best the next day.
Notes
Source Adapted from Sohla El-Waylly, “Homemade Spicy Chili Crisp,” Serious Eats (2018, modified 2025). The headnote dates the Lao Gan Ma line to 1996, after a 1989 noodle shop; other accounts put the factory in 1994 and the company in 1997.
Refrigerate it, and why Garlic and other fresh aromatics can carry botulinum spores, and oil shuts out the air those spores need to be kept from, so a garlic-and-oil sauce at room temperature is the textbook botulism hazard (garlic in oil caused outbreaks in Vancouver in 1985 and New York in 1989). The CDC’s advice for homemade oils made with garlic or herbs is to refrigerate them and throw them away after 4 days; UGA Extension gives the same 4 days for non-acidified infused oils. The source says it keeps about 3 months in the refrigerator. That figure is the source’s, not a tested one: no tested process exists for chili crisp. Its case rests on the shallots and garlic being fried dry before they go into the oil, but the fresh ginger matchsticks are not pre-fried and meet the hot oil only once. Keep it refrigerated always, and use a clean spoon.
The dish The Peppers and Hot Sauce section (/hot-sauce/) covers chili crisp and Lao Gan Ma, and the garlic-in-oil rule that governs every oil sauce.
The photo The photograph shows Lao Gan Ma chili crisp in a bowl, not this exact recipe.