Hot Honey Recipe – Easy to Make!
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I used to buy hot honey until I started making my own. It’s a breeze to make, tastes better than store-bought, and is much less expensive. Once you try this version, you’ll never look back!
When developing this recipe, I tried a few different versions before settling on this one—the best one! The flavor is just right, and it’s easy to scale up the spice level with a little extra hot sauce. My family loves this recipe so much that I keep it stocked in my pantry at all times now.
And it’s not just my family who loves it. With over 100 5-star reviews, you can trust you’ll love it, too. One reader, Anggie, says, “I tried hot honey at a restaurant recently and loved it so much that I thought I’d try to make it myself. Your recipe was so easy that I’m sure I’ll always have some in my pantry from now on! ★★★★★”
What is hot honey?
Hot honey is a delicious, spicy condiment that can be used to add sweet spice to everything from cheese to meat to dessert. While you can buy hot honey in your grocery store, it’s also easy to make at home.
I always keep a jar on hand to add a little sweet heat to my meals. It also makes a wonderful DIY gift!
This homemade hot honey isn’t super spicy. If you eat a spoonful, you’ll get a wonderful, spicy tingle on your tongue. But once added to other food, the spice level is tamer. If you want a more powerful punch, let the chili flakes infuse into the honey longer, or add more hot sauce.
Hot honey Ingredients
Honey – You’ll want to use liquid honey for this recipe. If you have access to local honey, that’s always the best option. But honestly, any jar or bottle of honey that you have in your pantry will work well.
Chili flakes – I like to use dried chili flakes as the heat level and the flavor is a lot more consistent than fresh chilis. Plus, they’re a pantry staple ingredient so you can make this hot honey without a trip to the grocery store.
Hot sauce/ vinegar – This is optional in the recipe. If you’re familiar with Mike’s Hot Honey and are wanting that slight vinegar note that it’s known for, adding a little hot sauce or apple cider vinegar is the way to go. I prefer to use a mildly spicy vinegary hot sauce (like Frank’s) to boost the pretty red color without making the honey overwhelmingly spicy.
How to make hot honey
Making hot honey is easier than 1-2-3!
- Put some honey, chili flakes, and hot sauce into a small pot or pan and warm them gently over medium heat until you see some bubbles near the edge of the pan.
- Now, wait a few minutes for the chili flakes to infuse into the honey, then strain the honey through a fine mesh sieve. So easy!
Hot honey recipe variations
While I love this recipe exactly as written, it’s fun to play with. Here are a few ideas if you’d like to get creative and make it your own:
- Instead of using chili flakes, use chili crisp. Don’t strain this version; you’ll want the yummy crunchy bits!
- Swap the chili flakes for slices of your favorite hot peppers – serrano, jalapeño, habanero, or bird’s eye are spicy and tasty.
- Add a pinch of salt to bring out the other flavors.
- Some dried seasonings amp up the flavor even more. Try ½ teaspoon of garlic powder, onion powder, chipotle powder, or chili powder. A little sage or rosemary adds a unique element.
How to use homemade hot honey
There are so many ways to use this spicy honey that once you get started you’ll find yourself drizzling some on nearly everything you eat. Here are a few of my favorite ways to serve hot honey.
- Spooned on top of my oven baked pork chops.
- Drizzled over pizza – try it with my gochujang pulled pork Korean pizza.
- Tossed with roasted veggies.
- Spooned on top of whipped feta, whipped ricotta, or baked brie.
- Drizzled over chocolate ice cream – this is so good!
- Used as simple syrup to make a spicy margarita.
How to store
Honey lasts virtually forever, and so does this hot honey. It should be stored in a clean glass jar in your pantry. Don’t store it in the fridge; the cool temperature will speed up crystallization. If your honey starts to crystallize (this is normal!), warm the jar gently in hot water.
Spicy Honey Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 cup honey
- 2 tablespoons chili flakes
- Optional: 2 teaspoons hot sauce or apple cider vinegar (see notes)
Instructions
- Add the honey and chili flakes to a small pot or pan over medium heat.1 cup honey, 2 tablespoons chili flakes
- Gently heat the honey until you see small bubbles forming along the edges of the pan then remove the pan from the heat.
- Let the honey infuse for 5 minutes. If you're using the hot sauce or vinegar, stir it into the honey now.Optional: 2 teaspoons hot sauce or apple cider vinegar
- Optional step: strain the honey through a fine-mesh sieve into a clean glass jar.
Last step:
- After you make this recipe, take a picture with your phone and share it in the comments section below. I love seeing it when you make my recipes!
Notes
Nutrition
We have thoroughly tested this recipe for accuracy. However, individual results may vary. See our full recipe disclosure here.
Hey! Do you know if this works with crushed red pepper?
They’ll work just fine in this recipe!
My husband and I felt that we couldn’t taste the heat only honey. Don’t get me wrong it was not bad, we were just expecting more spice.
Delicious! Tastes better than anything I can buy at the store. I can’t wait to try this on so many things.
Would this work be drizzled over a sopapilla cheesecake?
I’ve never tried sopapilla cheesecake before, but if you want to add a spicy element to it, I suspect it will taste great with hot honey.
I’m going to make this to drizzle over chicken and cornbread waffles. We’re having an Easter brunch. Do you think I could do 1 tsp of hot sauce and 1 tsp of apple cider vinegar, instead of 2 tsp of one or the other? I’d love the heat of the hot sauce AND the crisp apple cider vinegar.
Absolutely! I think that would taste great!
How do you get the chilli flakes to stop setting at the top? Every time I have made this I store it in a jar and then when I go to use it the chilli flakes are at the top and I have to stir it…
Other than that I love it!!
I’ve actually never experienced that! Perhaps our home is colder (so the honey is thicker).
I used homemade chili flakes from dried cayenne out of our garden and used 1 tablespoon for a cup of honey and found it to be really spicy…did I do something wrong??
Chili flakes can vary quite a bit in spiciness. You must have grown some fiery ones! If you find the honey too hot, I’d recommend straining the honey to remove the flakes.
THANK YOU this wonderful recipe! Until now I was $pending a lot on a lot of different brands of hot honey. Since chile flakes have varied levels of heat suggest starting with a smaller amount..you can always add more or add more honey if too hot for you.
Great on Pizza, cheese, fresh fruit, ice cream..almost anything. Love using it when wrapping pork, beef, chicken or seafood on the smoker.
I wanted to try hot honey and I found your recipe. I love how it actually tasted like cinnamon honey.
I made this for a Fathers Day BBQ coming up tomorrow. I can’t stop eating this delicious honey. My son is a Bee Keeper and we have all the honey we can handle, so I making a bunch of this great stuff.
Thank you and God Bless you for the recipe. It’s a KEEPER for sure….
Would make nice gifts! 🙂
This sounds amazing! Does anyone have any idea if/how this can be jarred to give as gifts? It’d make a great favor for my daughter’s upcoming wedding!
It absolutely can be! It lasts at room temperature for ages so it’s a great idea to give as a gift!
Is it chili flakes and hot sauce? Or instead of the flakes.
Chili flakes. The hot sauce is optional and adds a slight vinegary note, which is nice.
This hot honey is the best condiment pretty much ever! It’s so great on everything and anything. Thanks for sharing!
I love this honey! What a great combo here with a little heat love this!! I’ve been putting this on everything!
love it – all the fancy restaurants serve this and i wondered how it was made – turned out great!
This was perfect drizzled on our roasted vegetables and salad. Great idea!
Hot honey over ice cream is soooo good!
That is such a great idea!