Perk up your meals with a prickle of heat! These recipes with chili crisp breathe new life into everything from fresh salads to crispy dumplings and roasted salmon. There's an option for every mood.
Chili Crisp Grilled Cheese
This cheesy, spicy sandwich cleverly uses chili crisp in two ways. First, the oil is combined with mayonnaise, butter and Parmesan cheese to slather on the outside of the bread before toasting. Then, more chili crisp is drizzled over cheddar and mozzarella to add chile-flecked goodness to the cheese filling. It’s a simple sandwich, but the condiment seriously upgrades a classic grilled cheese.
Chili Crisp Chickpeas
You only need three ingredients to make a chile-infused version of this protein-packed, crunchy snack. To ensure your chickpeas become crispy, generously coat them with oil and stir them occasionally while roasting. I’ve found the easiest way to strain out the chili crisp oil is to let the jar stand at room temperature for a few minutes so the oil rises to the top. If you end up with any bits in the strainer, toss them with the chickpeas before serving.
Chili Crisp Eggs
Sure, you can spoon chili crisp over your fried eggs after cooking them. But actually cooking the eggs in chili crisp makes every bite filled with toasty chile flavor. Using medium heat to cook the eggs helps the whites maintain soft edges and prevents the added flakes from burning or blackening.
Chili Crisp Biscuits
A butter swim biscuit is a fluffy, buttermilk biscuit with a browned, caramelized bottom. It’s the result of cooking the dough in a generous pool of butter rather than adding the butter to the dough. This recipe embraces that concept, plus it includes stirring chili crisp into the batter and brushing it over the top after baking for a beautiful presentation and deep flavor. If you need to make these immediately but are out of buttermilk, try using a buttermilk substitute.
Smashed Chili Crisp Cucumber Salad
Smashing cucumbers creates craggy edges that will hold onto all the chunky bits in the chili crisp vinaigrette. This recipe calls for an important first step: tossing the cucumber pieces with salt and sugar. This pulls water out of the cucumbers and ensures the spicy, tangy dressing won’t become watery. After you make it once, this might just become your new go-to cucumber salad recipe.
Chili Crisp Salmon with Avocado and Cucumber Salad
How good does this sound: Chili crisp-crusted salmon served with a fresh, creamy salad of pickled ginger, avocado, cucumber and honey-chili crisp vinaigrette. Yum! It’s a meal easy enough for a weeknight that tastes like a restaurant-worthy salmon recipe. This dish has many great flavors, but the crunchy texture and tingly heat really give it a unique identity.
Rice Paper Breakfast Pizza
These breakfast pizzas are a great way to use rice paper and make an easy, satisfying meal at the same time. Since rice paper has a very light, almost neutral flavor, it’s ideal for showcasing all the savory flavors in this recipe. This one is a great recipe to finish up an almost-empty jar of chili crisp, since a small amount goes a long way here.
Easy Dumpling Soup
Dropping frozen potstickers into a miso-enriched broth makes this soup taste like it simmered all day, but it’s ready in just 30 minutes. Spoon chili crisp over each bowl to wake up the earthy mushrooms and enhance the sharpness of the fresh ginger. If you have time, try using homemade chicken potstickers, which freeze beautifully, so you can always have some ready to go.
Crispy Rice Paper Dumplings
These pan-fried dumplings feature chili crisp in the ground chicken filling to add richness to the lean meat, and again in the accompanying dipping sauce. The rice paper wrapper is lighter than a wheat-based wonton wrapper, so the bold flavors of the chili crisp really shine through.
Crispy Rice Salad
This recipe is a two-for-one if you’re looking for ways to use tahini and want to use up a jar of chili crisp. Crispy baked rice and fresh veggies are tossed in a garlicky tahini dressing for a hearty salad that feels light and fresh. Adding spicy chili crisp is a great way to contrast the earthy tahini, so feel free to whisk extra into the dressing if you love heat.
Lucy Wang’s Elevated Avocado Toast
A drizzle of chili crisp over a sunny-side up egg adds a welcome kick to breakfast, but it’s especially satisfying on creamy avocado toast. You can also mash the avocado and chili crisp together and spread it over the toast for a slightly easier-to-eat version.
Bao Buns (Baozi)
These homemade steamed buns are made by folding yeasted dough around an aromatic filling of ground pork, ginger and sesame oil. You can dip them in spicy chili crisp or tangy black vinegar—or mix the two together with a splash of soy sauce to make a quick sauce that tastes great with any dumpling recipes.
Miso-Roasted Carrots
Chili crisp adds a flavorful, elegant finishing touch to any simple carrot recipe. Serve extra sauce on the side so those who enjoy a lot of spice can add even more to their plate.
Dumpling Lasagna
Instead of folding individual dumplings, we tried layering wonton wrappers with a ginger-garlic pork filling to create lasagna. And it totally worked! The dish is steamed rather than baked, so the lasagna turns out really nice and soft. The chili crisp topping adds a welcome pop of crunchy texture at the end.
