Chili crisp
Condiment
Top 10 pairings
Chili crisp (Chinese làjiāo cuì or yóu pō làzi) is a crunchy chilli-in-oil condiment in which dried chilli flakes and a host of fried aromatics — garlic, shallot, onion, fermented soybean and often Sichuan peppercorn, peanuts or sesame — are suspended in hot, infused oil. Spooned over noodles, rice, dumplings, eggs and almost anything else, it delivers heat, deep savoury crunch and a glossy red slick of fragrant oil all at once.
Picking a good onedrag
Crisp, glossy, toasty-fragrantSoggy, rancid, fuzzy
Open and in useEveryday bestStir up from the bottom so each spoonful catches oil and crunch together. Use a clean dry spoon and leave the solids sitting under the oil.
Smell at the open jarStill fragrant but quieter, the garlic and shallot showing only once you stir the jar up from the bottom
The two layersSolids packed down hard under a tall slick of oil - ordinary settling, and it stirs straight back up
What the spoon findsSofter through the middle, but the garlic and the bigger flakes still snap between the teeth
Read the labelChilli and oil lead with peanut, sesame or Sichuan peppercorn behind: a nuttier, or a numbing málà, build