This quick and easy Chili Garlic Oil is made with simple ingredients and comes together in 10 minutes or less! Serve on your noodle dish, sushi, or use as a dipping sauce for potstickers or gyoza.
I love a good spicy dish, and often I use chili garlic oil to flavor a lot of my favorite dishes. I used to buy the jar in the stores until I realized that I could easily make my own!
This not only saves money, but it allows me to customize the level of spice and garlic flavor.
All you’ll need is oil, garlic, shallots, and some red chili flakes. Mix it up over a heated pan, and let the flavors combine for a spicy and garlicky sauce that pairs perfectly with your favorite Asian-inspired dishes like noodles, vegan ramen, potstickers, or even used as a dip or sauce for your favorite veggies.
Jump to:
Why You'll Love This Recipe
It’s made with simple ingredients you can find anywhere.
You can use it on so many different dishes like noodles, sushi, or even tossed into salads or drizzled over roasted vegetables.
It’s made from start to finish in 10 minutes or less.
You can customize the level of spice and garlic flavor.
It's full of bold flavors.
It's an easy, tasty way to add a bit of chili heat to a dish.
Ingredients
You only need 5 simple ingredients to make your own homemade chili garlic sauce recipe.
Vegetable Oil - Use a neutral-tasting oil for this recipe such as rapeseed or canola to make sure the flavors of the garlic and chili shine.
Fresh Garlic - There’s nothing like the flavor of fresh garlic paired with spicy chili.
Shallot - Adds a mild onion flavor that pairs well with the chili oil and helps give this oil as crunchy texture.
Crushed Red Chili Flakes - Gives this chili oil its classic spicy taste.
Sea Salt - Adds a salty kick to the oil and bring out the other flavors.
Please see the recipe card below for quantities and the full recipe method.
Instructions
Wondering how to make your own Chili Garlic Oil? It's so easy!
Follow this step by step photo tutorial, then scroll down to the recipe card for the full ingredients list and method.
Heat the oil. In a skillet or small pot, gently heat up the neutral-tasting oil.
Sautée: Then add the garlic, shallot, chili flakes, and salt to the oil. Sautée the ingredients into the oil over low heat until the garlic starts to turn a golden color. This will take about 5 minutes.
Add to a jar and serve: Remove from heat, then let cool before pouring into a glass jar or serving dish. Serve on your favorite dishes.
Serving Suggestions
Toss them into a Vegan Thai Noodle Bowl for a spicy Thai dish.
Add to a bowl of steamy Mushroom Ramen.
Toss the chili garlic oil with Miso Roasted Cauliflower for a spicy roasted vegetable side dish.
Use as a dipping sauce for Grilled Tofu Vegetable Skewers.
Dip your homemade Vegetable Gyoza into the garlic chili oil.
Variations
If you don’t want to use chili flakes, you can use ground-up red chili pepper.
Maple syrup, agave, or a pinch of brown sugar help to balance the flavors and give this chili oil a slightly sweet flavor that can be good for serving as a sweet chili dipping sauce.
For a more intense onion flavor, use red onion instead of shallots.
To make this recipe similar to Trader Joe’s crunchy chili oil, purchase fried garlic and stir it into the warmed oil.
For more Asian-inspired chili oil, add a dash of sesame oil and stir in some sesame seeds to the mix.
Storage
Storing: Since this Asian fried chili oil contains fresh garlic, it’s best used within 3-4 days. If using dried garlic, it can be stored for up to 10 days.
Freezing: Freezing this oil is not recommended as it will not hold up well in the freezer and thaw properly.
Top tips
It’s important that you use the correct oil to make this dish as any oil that has a slight flavor such as olive or coconut oil may infuse that flavor into the oil.
When cooking the garlic and shallot, make sure that you are keeping an eye on the garlic. If the garlic burns, it will add a bitter taste to the oil that is undesirable.
You can control the level of spice by adding as little or as much chili flake as you enjoy.
FAQs
Yes! Garlic has great health benefits and chili is known to raise metabolism. Making this from scratch also helps you control the ingredients.
You can, but that means you would have to let it come to room temperature before you use it each time which is not ideal if you are short on time.
More Sauce Recipes
We hope you love this Chili Garlic Oil recipe as much as we do! Be sure to check out these other great homemade sauce recipes too. They're such an easy way to jazz up a meal!
Sign up for our free newsletter and never miss a recipe!
Plus, you'll get a free eBook: 15 Minute Vegan Dinners!
Did you make this recipe?
* Head down to the comments and leave a ⭐ star rating!
* Share with #veggiedesserts on social media so I can see your creations.
* Follow me on Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter.
📖 Recipe
Chili Garlic Oil
Equipment
Ingredients
- ⅓ cup neutral vegetable oil ie: vegetable or canola oil
- 5 cloves garlic finely diced
- 1 shallot finely diced
- 1 ½ tablespoons crushed red chili flakes
- ⅛ teaspoon sea salt
Instructions
- Add the oil to a small pot and gently heat for a few minutes until warm.
- Add the garlic, shallots, chili flakes and salt and heat over a low heat for 5 minutes or until the garlic begins to turn golden (don’t let it get too dark or it will affect the taste of your chili garlic oil).
- Remove from the heat and allow to cool and infuse, then pour into a jar or serving dish.
- Store in a jar in the fridge for up to 4 days.
Notes
Nutrition
The nutritional information provided is approximate and can vary depending on several factors, so is not guaranteed to be accurate. Please see a registered dietician for special diet advice.
Shashi
Wow- so many uses for this oil! And it was so quick and easy! Thank you so much for sharing this!
Katia
This will be perfect drizzled over some pizza! Looks delicious
Gina
Thanks for showing how easy it is to make this at home! I love drizzling it over soups for some kick.
Helen
I love how simple this is, and such a lot of flavour!