Homemade Hot Honey Recipe

A beekeeper's guide to homemade hot honey, made in 10 minutes with raw honey and dried chili peppers. Sweet, spicy, and endlessly versatile. Fully customizable heat level, shelf-stable for months, and far better than any bottle you can buy.

5 from 1 vote

Prep Time 5

Cook Time 5

Total Time 10

Ingredients

2 cups raw honey
8-10 dried peppers (coarsely chopped, with seeds) 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: move to the next step
Not spicy enough: you can 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. Cool, then cover before storing.

Notes

Expert 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.