DIY Mala Chili Crisp and Chili Oil Kit

Chili crisp has become the "it" condiment over the past few years for good reason: It is spicy, numbing, crunchy umami in a jar and it enlivens almost any dish you put it on, from Sichuan noodles to dumplings to quesadillas to pizza. 

Many have tried to duplicate the phenomenal taste and success of China's Lao Gan Ma chili sauces, and most of their efforts are very tasty. But yours will be even tastier, because chili crisp is infinitely customizable, and yours will be customized to your taste. 

The Mala Market has bundled the hard-to-source ingredients that are must-haves for mala chili crisp into a kit that includes Sichuan’s favorite, toasty oil; the perfect, moderately hot blend of three Guizhou chilies; our super fragrant and numbing Sichuan pepper; Chinese warm spices; and Sichuan-style fermented black beans. You'll just add easily sourced aromatics and nuts to create your own unique crisp.

• The star ingredient, roasted rapeseed oil, or caiziyou, is an essential component of Sichuan gastronomy. There is no substitute for its fragrance or use. Caiziyou’s high adhesive quality also means chili oil produced with it clings better to all your noodle, chaoshou and liangban (cold) dishes. 
• Our Chengdu-made fragrant-hot ground chili blend includes the chilies Chengdu locals use for fragrance, color and spice: er jing tiao and facing heaven zi dan tou. The addition of xiao mi la kicks the heat up another notch.
• Whole five spice, including cassia bark, star anise, fennel, clove and our beloved single-origin Sichuan pepper, is used to infuse the oil.
• Additional huajiao is included—this is mala chili crisp, after all, and you'll need ground Sichuan pepper to provide the numbing power.
• Sichuan Pixian Douban Co.’s fermented black soybeans bring an irresistible umami.

The kit also includes our chili crisp recipe—based on Chinese Internet research and weeks of testing both ingredients and methods—and our favorite jar for storing chili crisp or chili oil. This functional beauty holds 17 ounces, so your creation will be not only better and fresher, it will be significantly bigger than store-bought chili crisp and chili oil, which ranges from 5 to 8 ounces. 

The instructions are also applicable to making aromatic chili oil, which has far less "crisp" and is used in noodle dishes such as dan dan mian and in most sauces for Sichuan cold dishes and salads. 

The kit makes two 17-ounce batches of chili crisp or aromatic chili oil. Use leftovers from the full-size products to make other Sichuan dishes.  

See individual products on this site for more description of each one, including brandname, provenance, ingredients and production methods. 

If this is a gift, know that we do not include any pricing info in the box. The collection is packaged with red tissue paper and a product storage and usage guide. Let us know in the note area at checkout if you would like this kit boxed separately, otherwise it will be packed with your other purchases to save on shipping cost.