The World’s Worst Food Blogger – Chili Salt

If you are unfamiliar with the concept behind this series of blog posts, head on over here to read the very first one.

What is Chili Salt?

Chili salt is a thing I recently invented. Okay, I probably didn’t invent it. Like all my great ideas, I most likely saw it somewhere a while ago, stored in in my subconscious, then brought it out and claimed it as my own when the time was right (a quick Google search return 50,200,000 results for ‘chili salt’. This confirms my suspicions).

Ownership of the idea aside, the time was certainly right. My Bird’s Eye chili plants are coming towards the end of their most productive season ever (I have had them for seven years). Over the summer they have produced in excess of 600, extremely hot chilies.

That’s a lot of chili, when just one of them is enough to add a kick to a meal. I had frozen some, used as many as I could fresh and lost about 50 during some bad weather. I still had an abundance of tiny red chilies left, and no idea what to do with them.

Oven-dried Chilies

My first thought was to dry them. I did this by cutting the chilies in half lengthwise and placing them in an oven on its lowest temperature setting (50 degrees Celsius – fan forced). After about 3 hours, they were dried and ready to be crushed.

I started with the good old-fashioned mortar and pestle, but soon moved on to the food processor to finish the job. Perhaps I hadn’t quite dried them enough, but the just wouldn’t flake away properly when I tried to grind them.

I reserved some of the chili flakes for cooking. They are ideal for use in a wide range of dishes.

How to Make Chili Salt

I returned the rest of the chili flakes to the mortar and pestle, and added a good handful of rock salt. I didn’t really know what ratio to go for, but I knew that the chili was pretty potent, so I erred on the side of caution and added twice as much salt.

The salt helped with grinding the chili flakes into a fine powder. The final result was a pinkish salt, with some small red specks dotted throughout. I am fairly happy with the mixture, a small amount sprinkled on top of a dinner gives a good saltiness, followed by a heat kick. I find myself sprinkling the mixture over just about every meal I eat (within reason). I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m a bit addicted.

Because of my current addiction, expect chili salt to feature heavily throughout my World’s Worst Food Blogger posts.

It’s easy to make and there’s really no right or wrong way. If you are like me and you have an abundance of fresh chilies, stick some in the oven and give it a go. After a bit of experimentation, I’m sure you will end up with the perfect mix for you. Once you do, good luck ever using normal salt again!