Jalapeno Hot Honey

If you like the flavor of sweet but enjoy a bit of fire mixed together, try this recipe for jalapeno honey. It is made by infusing honey with hot peppers for a unique flavor experience. The thing I like best – I can adjust the heat of the jalapeno (hot) honey to suit my tastes. Our bees work really hard to produce honey and it is great alone. But, why not take the flavor experience one step further and give your honey a bit of a kick.

Infused honey is made by adding a hint of flavor from various herbs, fruits or flowers. This affects the taste of honey straight from the jar or when used in delicious honey recipes.

How to Make Hot Honey

Honey flavor is primarily determined by the flowers that bees visit. Each nectar source results in a unique honey color and flavor.

However, we can add special flavors to this wonderful product made by bees. Simple additives such as vanilla beans or red pepper flakes impart added flavor -but the process of infusion takes things a step farther.

Honey

Because the flavor of this recipe will be quite bold – you can use any variety or type of honey. Regular wildflower honey is just fine – there is no need to spend extra money.

Keep in mind that honey absorbs moisture from the air and added substances. When adding wet ingredients (fresh peppers, etc.) to a honey with a high water content – there is always a chance for fermentation. Use quality honey for the recipe.

Honey Infusion Processes

Honey infusion is most often done using herbs. Fresh herbs are cleaned and placed in a nylon bag and then inserted into a jar of honey.

Now, the wait begins. The jar often sits in a sunny windowsill for quite a while. Over the next few weeks, the liquid takes on some of the herbal flavor.

Popular flavors are rosemary, mints, lavender and chamomile. But, you don’t have to stop there – you can make hot honey using jalapeno peppers.

Quick Infusion

Sometimes you need a special condiment in a hurry. No problem. You can make Jalapeno Honey as hot and spicy as you wish – in a short period of time.

Normally, I am not in favor of heating raw honey. Heat can destroy some of its natural nutrients and enzyme properties.

However, heat is necessary in order to speed up the infusion process. Warmth encourages the release of the jalapeno essence.

To protect the integrity of the product as much as possible, I warm it in a double boiler. Also, the honey never reaches an extremely high temperature.

Note: If do not wish to use heat, try the sunny windowsill method. The slow way infusion with peppers will work just fine too.

Step by Step Process

1. For the quick infusion way, wash, dry and cut up a jalapeno pepper. Toss the stem. Keep the seeds, peel and juices.

2. Warm honey in a pan on the stove (or microwave). Next, add the pepper (skin, seeds and all) to the pan and let steep for 10-15 minutes).

3. After the steeping time is finished, use a strainer (or similar) to remove the pepper parts. Discard these.

4. Store your homemade hot honey in a tightly sealed jar – the same way you normally store honey. If you choose to leave a few pieces of pepper in the jar, that is okay.

However, only do so if you plan to use it within a few days. The excess moisture may cause it to spoil.

Enjoy Hot Honey in Your Favorite Dishes

Jalapeno honey is easy to make and adds some buzz to your sauces and marinades. It is the perfect condiment – a combination of heat and sweet. You can even use it when making homemade honey teriyaki sauce.

Drizzle on slices of cheese or hot biscuits or cornbread. Use some on this recipe for tender baked honey mustard pork chops. For those who love cooking outside – honey grilled pork chops are great.

Spicy honey is a good partner for fried chicken wings. You can even add a drizzle to your next pizza! It also makes a wonderful glaze for roasted chicken or baked pork tenderloins.

Or, maybe you would like to use your hot honey to make some honey glazed pineapple with a special twist. The same idea could be applied to this recipe for dehydrated apples made with cinnamon and honey.

Finally

I hope you enjoy your jalapeno honey as much as I do. We actually keep two varieties on hand one really hot and one mild. Don’t stop your experiments in infusion and creating new flavored honey items. The bees do a great job of producing a food that they need and we love too. But, that doesn’t mean you can’t turn up the heat a bit if you wish.