Jalapeno Salt
Spice up everything from margaritas to grilled corn with this homemade jalapeño salt. Vibrant heat meets savory saltiness in every sprinkle.
Flavoured finishing salts are so fun. They are a great way to add some complexity to your dish without a whole lot of work.
That fact coupled with my constant need to experiment in the kitchen has brought out some pretty cool flavoured salts. I’ve tackled smoked salt, and sriracha salt. Today, I’m going to share my jalapeno spicy salt.
This jalapeno salt recipe is dedicated to experiments gone right.
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Tips + Tricks
No. 1 –> This recipe requires dehydrated peppers, don’t worry, I’ve got a great dehydrated jalapenos tutorial for you. I’ll include brief directions for dehydrating the peppers in this recipe, but there’s tons of information in my tutorial if you need more!
No. 2 –> If you’ve got a mask think about wearing it while blending the salt and jalapenos. The jalapeños can give off some strong fumes. Another great way to beat the fumes is to drape a damp kitchen towel over the blender or food processor – the towel helps to trap the spicy air and keep it away from your nose and lungs. This tip is courtesy an awesome Crave reader – Thanks Judy!
No. 3 –> This recipe will work for any kind of hot pepper, I’m thinkin’ habaneros, chili peppers, or serranos would be delicious!
No. 4 –> Pick over the dried peppers carefully, any that aren’t completely brittle need to be dried longer or discarded as they will add moisture to your salt and that’s a pain in the behind.
No. 5 –> This salt makes a fantastic gift for the foodies in your life. Packaged in a nice spice jar and wrapped with a bow is a great way to give a little spice to someone’s life!
Jalapeno Fan? Try These Jalapeno Forward Recipes!
Key Ingredients
Jalapeños: You’ll need dried jalapenos for this recipe. As with any dried food, proper storage of the dried peppers goes a long way in ensuring the quality of flavor, so ensure your dried jalapenos are up to snuff!
Salt: I like to use coarse kosher salt for this recipe. Coarse sea salt would work too, but it’s a harder salt so it may need more blending than kosher.
How To Make Jalapeno Salt
Starting With Fresh Jalapeno Peppers:
- Wash and dry jalapenos. Wearing gloves, remove the stems, de-seed, and dice the peppers into a fine dice.
- Spread prepared peppers on a dehydrator tray and dehydrate for 6-10 hours at 125f, or until completely brittle. See How To: Dehydrate Jalapeno Peppers for more information.
- Continue with directions below.
Starting With Dried Peppers:
- Add the dried peppers to the bowl of your food processor and pulse 2-3 times. The goal here is to break up the jalapenos into smaller pieces, similar to that of the salt grains. If you don’t prefer a finer salt, process until the pepper pieces are quite small.
- Once the jalapenos are chopped down a bit, add the salt to the food processor.
- Pulse the until the salt and jalapenos are completely combined and the texture is as desired, less blending will equal larger pieces while more blending will result in a finer grind.
- Transfer the salt to an airtight container for storage and add to a shaker or salt bowl when required.
How To Use Jalapeno Salt
This section might be better served by asking how not to use jalapeno salt. Aside from mixing in your coffee, I cannot think of a single bad use for this salt!
- add it to your loaded guacamole
- rim your margaritas with it
- use it in the rub for your smoked recipes
- sprinkle it on popcorn or popcorn balls
- add to pepper jack mac, or bread machine cheese bread, or to finish your sous vide green beans
- sprinkle it on smoked almonds, or on smoked pumpkin seeds
- use it on french fries
- season your sous vide chicken bread with it!
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Batch + Storage Information
Batch:
This recipe whips up about 1 1/2 cups of jalapeno salt. It can be scaled easily up or down, though, at the rate that you’ll use this salt, I don’t recommend all the work for a half batch – it will be gone too fast!
Scale:
- 5 jalapenos (about 1/4 cup dried) – 1/2 cup coarse salt
- 10 jalapenos (about 1/2 cup dried) – 1 cup coarse salt
- 30 jalapenos (about 1 1/2 cup dried) – 3 cups coarse salt
Storage:
As with any dried herb or spice, this homemade jalapeno salt should be kept in an airtight container in a dark, cool place. I keep my extras in a mason jar in my spice cupboard and the portion we’re using in a shaker. It will keep well over a year as the salt will help preserve the dried peppers too!
Recommended Equipment
Food processor: I have a Cuisinart Food Processor that is probably 10 years old, and it’s a total workhorse! This unit is perfect for blending up these dehydrated jalapenos and salt for a kick ass jalapeno salt.
Dehydrator: I have and love(!) TWO 9 rack Excalibur Dehydrators. It’s got a 24-hour timer and very precise temperature controls so it’s great for dehydrating various foods.
📖 Printable Recipe
Jalapeno Salt
Ingredients
- ½ cup dehydrated jalapenos, about 10
- 1 cup coarse kosher salt
Instructions Start Cooking
- Wash and dice fresh jalapenos. Spread them on a dehydrator tray and dehydrate for 6-10 hours at 125f, or until completely brittle.
- Add the ½ cup dehydrated jalapenos to the bowl of your food processor and pulse 2-3 times. The goal here is to break up the jalapenos into smaller pieces before we add the salt. lt. If you don't mind a finer salt, skip this step.
- Once the jalapenos are chopped down a bit, add 1 cup coarse kosher salt.
- Pulse the food processor until the salt and jalapenos are completely combined and the texture is as desired, less blending will equal larger pieces while more blending will result in a finer grind.
- Transfer the salt to an airtight container for storage and add to a shaker or salt bowl when required.
Notes
Batch:
This recipe whips up about 1 1/2 cup of jalapeno salt. It can be scaled easily up or down, though, at the rate that you’ll use this salt, I don’t recommend all the work for a half batch – it will be gone too fast! Scale:- 5 jalapenos (1/4 cup dried) – 1/2 cup coarse salt
- 10 jalapenos (1/2 cup dried) – 1 cup coarse salt
- 30 jalapenos (1 1/2 cups dried) – 3 cups coarse salt
Can i just grind up jalapenos fresh with the salt like i do with basil and chives, then let it dry out for a day or 2? Instead of dehydrating jalapenos? Thanks!
I’ve been thinking about this since you asked, and I don’t think it would work quite the same – I also do rosemary salt the same way ad you’ve described, but I think that peppers just have too much moisture in them to use raw.
This sounds like something my family would enjoy. I dehydrated 12 Jalapenos in my dehydrator and have ground them which is just under 1/4 cup. In the batch scale are the measurements before or after the peppers have been ground? Thank you for the recipe & assistance.
Hey Tracey! The measurement in the recipe is for before they were ground. If you wanted to use all of your jalapenos, I would recommend mixing with about 1 cup of salt. Alternatively, if you measured your jalapenos before grinding, you can use the ratio of approximately 5 jalapenos (about half of your ground peppers) to 1/2 cup salt 🙂
We love your recipe!! We had margaritas and it was refreshing difference. Definitely a keeper!!
Happy to hear this!