In another episode of homemade Christmas gifts, today I bring you chilli oil. 

It’s really easy to make, and a great gift for anyone that loves a good kick of spice on their food or in their cooking.

I recommend using vegetable oil, as it is neutral in taste, and it won’t smoke as quickly as olive oil. That doesn’t mean that you can’t use olive oil, because you most certainly can. The key is to make sure that you heat up the oil, but you can’t let it smoke. If it starts to smoke then you’ll need to take it off the heat immediately, and you may even have to start again. 

But, the beauty of chilli oil is that it’s a plastic-free option, if you buy your dried chillies in bulk, and your oil in glass bottles. It’s also a zero-waste option if you are able to buy oil from a bulk-buy store as well.

Another great thing about chilli oil is that, unlike other flavoured oils (like garlic), it will keep for a long time without going rancid, or being a health risk.

I’m going to try my best to get something up on the blog every day in December, in the build-up to Christmas. I can’t promise that each post will be long, or informative, and some of the recipes will be extremely simple. But I hope you will enjoy them none-the-less.

Ingredients

250ml vegetable oil
2 tablespoons dried chilli flakes
2 – 3 large dried chillies, or 8 – 10 small ones

1. Add two tablespoons of oil to a saucepan, along with the dried chilli flakes and whole dried chillies over a low heat.
2. Add the remaining oil to the pan and heat through for 10 minutes. Make sure the oil does not start to smoke.
3. Remove from the heat, and allow to cool before pouring into a bottle or jar.
4. Use on pizza, over pasta, in stir-fries. You name it.