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Add this to your charcuterie spread! This sticky, sweet and spicy honey is so easy to make and you only need two ingredients for jalapeño hot honey – the honey itself and some jalapeno peppers. Homemade hot honey is fun to make and you can control how spicy you want the end result to come out. It’s going to be your new favorite condiment! You don’t need any special ingredients or equipment to make your own hot jalapeno honey. It is wonderful drizzled over pizza, bread, pasta, cheese, fried chicken, seafood, cocktails, and much more.
Jalapenos pair with honey to make a sweet and spicy sauce you’ll want to have drizzled over everything.
You might also like to make your own tomato paste, Italian salsa verde, or blue cheese dressing. Or try these honey peanut butter shots with hot honey!
Why You’ll Love It
Only 2 ingredients: You only need 2 ingredients to make your own hot honey sauce.
So easy to prepare: Slice a jalapeno and cook it with some honey – that’s pretty much all you have to do.
A versatile condiment: There are lots of foods that pair well with jalapeno honey, everything from pork and chicken to seafood, pizza, and you can even use it to make salad dressings. If you are a fan of Mike’s Hot Honey, you will love this recipe.
Easy Hot Pepper Honey Ingredients
A complete list of ingredients and amounts can be found in the recipe card below.
Honey: I like to use local honey. You can use any kind of plain honey (not flavor-infused honey).
Jalapenos: Try to find perfectly fresh jalapenos. Don’t use any with blemishes or discolored areas.
How to Make Jalapeño Honey Sauce
For more detailed instructions with weights and measurements, jump to the printable recipe card.
Prepare the jalapenos: Cut the hot peppers into slices.
Cook the honey with the jalapenos: Add the honey to a saucepan and add the sliced jalapenos. Bring the honey to a slow simmer and then turn the heat level down and let it heat for 8 to 10 minutes, stirring often. Take it off the heat and let it cool.
Prepare the jars: Wash your jars and dry them well.
Add the jalapeno honey: After 10 minutes of cooling time, pour the honey into the prepared jars through a sieve to remove the jalapeno pieces and the seeds. Tightly close the lids and let the jalapeno honey cool to room temperature before refrigerating it.
Free Printable Hot Honey Tag
Substitutions and Variations
Adjust the heat: Make the recipe as written and you can expect a medium heat. Use less jalapeno or more jalapeno to get the heat level where you want it. You could even add a few drops of hot sauce or some cayenne pepper or red pepper flakes.
Other peppers: Swap the jalapenos for habanero peppers or serrano peppers.
Serving Suggestions
With meat or seafood: Drizzle the jalapeno hot honey over chicken, fish or smoked shrimp.
With vegetables: Enjoy it with mashed potatoes, smoked corn or roasted carrots.
With cheese: Hot honey pairs well with whipped feta cheese or goat cheese. It’s also amazing with these mozzarella chicken sticks.
With dessert: Try it over homemade brownies or ice cream.
With breakfast: It’s so good with eggs, bacon, waffles, and French toast muffins.
Even more ideas: Drizzle hot honey over cornbread or margherita pizza, or use it to liven up salad dressings in place of plain honey.
How to Store Hot Honey
Store: Keep the honey refrigerated and use within a month.
Freeze: You can freeze it almost indefinitely.
Thaw: Defrost it in the refrigerator overnight.
Reheat: You can warm your hot honey back up in a pan on the stove.
Top Tips
Spice level: Taste as you go since some jalapenos are hotter than others. Leave some of the jalapeno slices in the honey when transferring it into the jars for a hotter result.
Labeling the jars: Print the labels on regular paper or sticker paper for a fun look or if you’re gifting it.
Warm it up before use: The honey thins a bit when heated. This makes it easier to drizzle over pizza, chicken or your dish of choice.
Hot Jalapeño Honey FAQs
This is normal. Honey can crystallize when kept somewhere cold, especially when there are other ingredients in there. It might get chunky or cloudy after a couple of weeks but that doesn’t indicate spoilage – it’s still perfectly safe to eat. Let it come to room temperature and then sit the jar in a dish of hot water for 10 minutes. Stir the jalapeno honey and you’ll find it’s gooey and runny again.
You might like to use these cute bear jars for your hot honey. I used these 5.4-ounce glass jars. This recipe fills 2 or more of the smaller ones.
No, you can use any kind of honey (plain though, not the flavored kind). Regular honey is taken from the beehive and then pasteurized and filtered to remove pollen, dead bugs and dirt, and then it’s packaged. Raw honey is taken from the beehive and packaged without the filtering. It has a unique flavor and tends to have a thicker consistency than filtered honey. Any kind of plain honey will work in this recipe – just ensure it’s 100% honey and not diluted with corn syrup like some cheap honey is.
Honey is shelf stable and has a shelf life of years (or more!) as long as it’s not contaminated. However, when making hot honey and adding jalapenos you’re adding things to the honey. For this reason, it’s best to keep your hot honey in the refrigerator after making it.
Jalapeño Infused Hot Honey Recipe
Jalapeño Hot Honey
Ingredients
- 16 Ounces honey, local if possible
- 3 jalapeños, large
Instructions
- Evenly cut 3 jalapeños into slices about ½-inch thick.
- Pour the honey into a medium saucepan. Before turning on the heat, place the slices of jalapeños evenly in the honey around the pan.
- Turn the heat to medium low. As soon as the honey begins to bubble slightly (not a boil), turn the heat down to low and let the mixture heat through for 8 to 10 minutes stirring frequently.
- Take the pan off the heat and let the honey cool down for a few minutes while you prepare the jars.
- Wash your jars thoroughly and dry them well before pouring the honey in.
- After about 10 minutes of cooling, the honey will be ready to pour in the jar. Pour it through a sieve to remove the jalapeño slices and seeds.
- Note: I poured the honey in, leaving a few jalapeño slices so the honey would get hotter over time. This is optional, but if you want the honey to be more spicy leave more jalapeño slices in the jar when you pour in the honey.
- Close the lid tightly and leave out until it cools to room temperature before transferring to the refrigerator.
Notes
Labeling the jars: Print the labels on regular paper or sticker paper for a fun look or if you’re gifting it.
Warm it up before use: The honey thins a bit when heated. This makes it easier to drizzle over pizza, chicken or your dish of choice.
Nutrition
If you like Mike’s Hot Honey or another brand, you might like to know how to make your own jalapeno hot honey. Combining spice with sweetness isn’t a new trend – candied jalapeños have been around for a long time, as have spicy and sweet dishes – but hot honey is especially popular these days and there are so many ways to enjoy it. Try it with fried chicken, seafood, pizza, smoked cream cheese, or dessert.
Other Recipes to Try
Bella Bucchiotti
Bella Bucchiotti is a Canadian-based syndicated food, travel, and lifestyle writer, photographer, and creator at xoxoBella. She founded xoxoBella in 2015, where she shares her love for food, dogs, sustainability, fitness, crafts, outdoor adventures, travel, and philanthropy to encourage others to run the extra mile, try new recipes, visit unfamiliar places, and stand for a cause. Bella creates stress-free and family-friendly recipes for weeknight dinners and festive feasts.
