Hot Honey

Hot Honey

  • Serves: Makes 250 ml

  • Prep Time: 2 minutes

  • Cooking Time: 5 minutes

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Ingredients

  • 250 g Lush Lychees Lychee Blossom Honey
  • 2 teaspoons dried chilli flakes
  • 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
  • A pinch of salt
  • Optional: 1 sprig of rosemary or 2 strips of lemon peel

Five minutes, one jar, and suddenly it goes on pizza, fried chicken and everything else.

Hot honey has gone from a Nashville speciality to a fixture in about five years, and it is one of the simplest things you can make. Warm honey with chilli, let it sit, and you have a condiment that turns cheese on toast into something worth photographing.

Method

  1. Warm the honey in a small saucepan over the lowest heat you can manage until it is runny and just steaming. Do not let it bubble — honey scorches easily and loses its floral character above about 60°C.

  2. Take it off the heat, stir in the chilli flakes, vinegar and salt, and add the rosemary or lemon peel if using.

  3. Leave to infuse for 30 minutes, tasting every 10. The heat builds noticeably as it sits.

  4. When it is where you want it, strain out the aromatics if you used them. Leave the chilli flakes in — they look right and keep developing.

  5. Pour into a clean jar. It keeps three months in the pantry and will crystallise eventually; stand the jar in warm water to bring it back.

Tips

  • Start with less chilli than you want. You can always warm it again and add more.

  • The vinegar is not optional — it stops the honey being one-dimensionally sweet and makes it work as a savoury condiment.

  • Best on: pizza, fried chicken, hot haloumi, roasted carrots, blue cheese, and a bowl of hot chips.
Hot Honey