Weekly Recipe: TJ’s Knockoff Crunchy Chili Oil

Ok so if y’all follow me on Instagram, then you may have seen this week that Trader Joe’s by us stopped carrying the crunchy chili oil that we LOVE. So I attempted to made my own and it was actually so good! So here’s the recipe!

What you need:

• ¼ cup Korean chili flakes (gochugaru)

• ¼ cup Crushed red pepper flakes (more is you want super spicy/less if you don’t love spice)

• 2 TBSP soy sauce

• A generous sprinkle of sesame seeds

• 2 heads of garlic

• 4 shallots

• 2 bay leaves

• 1.5 cups of oil (I used grapeseed)

What to do:

• First off, throw the the Korean Chili flakes, crushed red pepper flakes, soy sauce and sesame seeds into a bowl (a heat safe bowl!) and mix them together 

• Second, you need to peel and thinly slice all the garlic and shallots (this took so long so if you have a hack to make this go fast, use it!) - whatever size you cut them to will be their size in your chili oil so you could do a fine chop if you want smaller pieces

• Add the oil, shallots, garlic, and bay leaves to a pan and simmer on med/low heat until the shallots and garlic are brown and crunchy (but not burnt!). This took about 25-30min for me

• Ok, when the shallots and garlic are to your desired crispyness - take a strainer and hold it over the bowl with the chilli/soy sauce mixture and pour the hot oil over the strainer so that you catch all the shallots and garlic but the hot oil goes into the bowl! 

• At this point, put the strainer aside and let the crispy bits cool down but give the hot oil/chilies a good stir to make sure they are all getting hot and cooked!

• Once the crispy bits/oil mixture have cooled a bit - add the crispy bits in - give a good stir, throw it in a jar and be amazed!

So far this week, I have put this on eggs, salmon, I put it in my sandwich, I ate some on a cracker - I can’t stop! I hope y’all love it!