Hot Honey
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We’re in our second year as beekeepers on our growing homestead and because chicken math has nothing on bee math, I doubled my hives this spring.
Which you would think would double my honey output, right? Wrong. It went up exponentially – for 50lbs in our first year to over 150lbs this year.
You know what that means? We’re about to make your new favorite hot sauce!
This homemade hot honey recipe is dedicated to bee math.

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Tips
- If you’ve got a jar of honey in the pantry that has crystallized, this is the perfect recipe to use it in! The heat during the infusion stage melts the sugar crystals and returns the honey to its liquid form.
- Fresh chili peppers can be used to infuse your honey, but I hate to add water to the mix, so I do not use that method. Honey has a long shelf life because the bees dry it to around 17% moisture content. Higher than 18% can actually cause fermentation of your hot honey.
- I do have a guide on drying peppers, and it works for any hot pepper.
Key Ingredients
Honey: I’m using hyper local honey, as in straight from my backyard, but I do recommend using local ingredients wherever possible, especially honey because it is believed that local honey actually has health benefits!
Dried Peppers: For this batch of hot honey, I’m using dehydrated Red Flame peppers from my garden, but you can use pretty much any dried peppers or even crushed red pepper flakes! Red Flame peppers are a cayenne variety, with a Scoville rating between 30 and 50,000 SHU. This puts them on par with other cayenne peppers, Chili De Arbol, and some Thai peppers. If you like more kick, try habanero peppers. For less heat, opt for jalapeno or poblano.

How To Make Hot Honey
- Add 2 cups of honey and coarsely chopped dry peppers with their seeds or 3-4 tablespoons of dried chili flakes to a small heavy bottomed saucepan.
- Heat the mixture on low until barely simmering. It’s important to NOT boil the honey – boiling honey expands rapidly and can make a mess, and at a certain point, boiled honey begins to make candy – which is not what we want all!
- Simmer for 5 minutes, stirring regularly, then sample the honey:
Spicy enough: move to the next step
Not spicy enough: add a bit more peppers or pepper flakes and simmer for another 5 minutes before testing again
Too spicy: add a bit more honey to tone down the spice before moving to the next step - Remove honey from heat and allow to cool slightly. Meanwhile, sanitize a storage jar by washing in hot soapy water, rinsing well and drying completely.
- Using a fine mesh strainer, carefully strain the solids out of the warm honey. Honey flows more easily when warm, so don’t allow it to cool too much before straining.





If desired, you can leave the dried peppers or pepper flakes in the honey without straining. It does make a beautiful gift with the peppers intact, but the heat will likely continue to intensify in the honey during the storage period.
Batch + Storage
Batch
2 cups of honey will produce a scant 2 cups of hot honey – you may lose a bit of volume to evaporation and residuals left in the sauce pan, but you’ll get pretty close to what you put into it. You can easily scale this recipe up or down, but stick to the 1 cup of honey to 3-4 dried peppers or 1 cup of honey to 2 tablespoons of red pepper flakes ratio.
Storage
The beauty of using dry peppers in this recipe means you can store your infused honey like any other honey, at room temperature away from sunlight and temperature swings. Mine stays in my pantry.
If it crystallizes over time, and raw honey has a tendency to do that, especially honey high in canola nectar, it can be kept in the glass jar and placed into a pot of barely simmering water and heated until it returns to it’s liquid state. If you’re not storing in a glass jar, I recommend scraping the honey into a small saucepan and heating it directly that way.

SERVING SUGGESTIONS
You’re going to love the sweet heat from this hot honey so much, you’re going to want to drizzle it on everything. Here’s some ideas that you may not have had:
- on pizza
- stir into a warming tea or cocktails (spicy margs, anyone?)
- over melted brie
- on vanilla ice cream
- on a cheese or charcuterie board
- on biscuits or cornbread
- on fried chicken or chicken wings
- as a salad dressing
- on roasted veggies
Recommended Equipment
Mason jars: I am a self proclaimed jar lady, and every time Bernardin or Ball comes out with a limited edition jar I am forced to buy it. I have a great eclectic collection of mason jars and I use them for all sorts of recipes, from canning, to storing dehydrated goods, to making creme brulee. Mason jars are excellent from a food storage perspective because they can easily be sterilized, the lids are easily replaceable and inexpensive.
More Elevated Ingredients
Find more recipes to elevate simple ingredients!
๐ Printable Recipe

Hot Honey
Ingredients
- 2 cups raw honey
- 8-10 dried peppers, chopped or 3-4 tablespoons red pepper flakes
Instructions
- Add 2 cups of honey and 8-10 chopped dried peppers and their seeds or 3-4 tablespoons of red pepper flakes to a small saucepan.
- Heat the mixture on low until barely simmering. Do not allow the honey to boil.
- Simmer for 5 minutes, stirring regularly, then sample the honey:Spicy enough:ย move to the next stepNot spicy enough:ย you can add a bit more peppers or pepper flakes and simmer for another 5 minutes before testing again.Too spicy:ย add a bit more honey to tone down the spice before moving to the next step.
- Remove honey from heat and allow to cool slightly. Meanwhile, sanitize a storage jar by washing in hot soapy water, rinsing well and drying completely.
- Using a fine mesh strainer, carefully strain the solids out of the warm honey. Cool, then cover before storing.
Notes
Batch
2 cups of honey will produce a scant 2 cups of hot honey โ you may lose a bit of volume to evaporation and residuals left in the sauce pan, but youโll get pretty close to what you put into it. You can easily scale this recipe up or down, but stick to the 1 cup of honey to 4-5 dried peppers or 1 cup of honey to 2 tablespoons of red pepper flakes ratio.Storage
The beauty of using dry peppers in this recipe means you can store your infused honey like any other honey, at room temperature away from sunlight and temperature swings.ย If it crystallizes over time your hot honey can be kept in the glass jar and placed into a pot of barely simmering water and heated until it returns to itโs liquid state. If youโre not storing in a glass jar, I recommend scraping the honey into a small saucepan and heating it directly that way.Recommended Equipment + Ingredients
Nutrition
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Love honey, just bought another Five pounds. And love hot, hot peppers. Our honey is from Vanderhoof British Columbia Mountains. Fireweed.
I will be sure to try your recipe. Will be good on ice cream
Wayne
Nakusp, B.C.
Hi Wayne, fireweed honey sounds amazing! Did you know fireweed pollen is actually grey? We have some fireweed around her and the first time I saw fireweed pollen I was worried my hives were molding!