hot honey recipe (super simple!)

This hot honey recipe uses a genius technique to make spicy honey that is perfectly thick and pourable, every time. It’s hot, sweet, floral, and just tangy enough to keep you drizzling!

Why I love it:

The tricky thing about making hot honey at home is knowing how much to cook it. I always end up over-reducing or caramelizing the honey and by the time it cools, the honey mixture is rock hard and a huge waste of time and money.

Instead of cooking away on the stove and guessing if it’s thick enough, we use this genius technique I learned from Cook’s Illustrated. We reduce the honey hot sauce mixture in the microwave in a glass measuring cup, so we can monitor exactly how much water is evaporating. No overcooking, no over-reducing, not caramelizing. It’s a fool-proof method for getting the perfect drizzly consistency, every time.

Also, in case you missed it, we’re using hot sauce!

This gives us a ton of flexibility with flavors. Love the pungency of Sriracha? Use it! Want sharp heat and vinegar? Use Tabasco! I’m personally obsessed with Frank’s hot sauce (to a level that gets a little extreme when I’m pregnant), and I love the balance of vinegary heat it brings to hot honey. 

If you happen to have some ultra-hot hot sauces, this hot honey recipe is the perfect canvas to use a few drops of something electric. Consider opting out of the chile flakes, if this is the case!

Keep reading for tips to make perfect hot honey, how to modify the recipe to make 100% honey infused with chiles (like Mike's Hot Honey), and all of my favorite ways to use this sweet-spicy elixir.

What is hot honey?

Hot honey is just spicy honey! It’s a sweet-spicy condiment that can be drizzled on all kinds of sweet and savory foods. From biscuits, fried chicken, and pepperoni pizza to hot toddies and ice cream-- you’re bound to find a way to add more honey richness and spice to your everyday meals.

Hot honey is often made by infusing honey with red chile flakes on the stove. While great on paper, this technique has a lot of drawbacks. It’s very easy to cook off too much water or caramelize the honey and end up with a spicy honey sauce that is way too thick, or worse, cools into a hard rock. 

Our technique is crazy simple, reliable, and so tasty: make a honey hot sauce mixture and use the microwave. 

hot honey ingredients

• honey
• hot sauce
• red chile flakes

how to make hot honey:

1. Combine honey, hot sauce, and chile flakes in a glass measuring cup.
2. Microwave for 1 minute.
3. Continue to microwave for eight 20-second intervals, or until reduced to a generous ½ cup.
4. Strain and cool.
5. Enjoy!

Why this is the best hot honey:

Perfect consistency: We cook the hot honey in the microwave in 20-second intervals to precisely monitor the water loss. When the honey is hot and on the stove, it’s impossible to tell how thick it will be when cool. That’s why we tend to overcook it and get gloppy and disappointing hot honey. This method is perfect, every time.

Fast and Easy: No stove, no pots, no thermometers. This hot honey is made in 5 minutes in the microwave. It’s ideal for a last-minute condiment or addition to a cheese board!

Flavor: Control the flavor you add with your hot sauce choice. I love the vinegary tang that Frank’s brings to hot honey, but too much of it overpowers the gorgeous floral notes of honey. We add just enough for freshness, balance, and a touch of complexity. Then we pile on the heat with chile flakes.

Control the heat: Once you pick your favorite hot sauce, add pure heat with dried chile flakes. Think of the hot sauce as the flavor and vinegar balance. Crank up the spice with more or less chile flakes. Or, keep it flavorful and mild and skip the chile flakes altogether.

how to make sous vide hot honey:

If you want to go the opposite route of the microwave and preserve the delicacy, health properties, and exact consistency of pure honey, then sous vide is for you.

It's just as simple, but it takes more time to slowly infuse the honey without changing the properties. Here's how to make 100% honey that's infused with chiles (like Mike's Hot Honey):

1. Put 2 tbsp chile flakes, 2- 3 sliced fresh chiles, or 2- 3 crumbled dried chiles in a glass jar. Pour honey on top and stir to combine. Cover jar with plastic wrap and poke a few holes in the top to let air escape.
2. Heat it in a sous vide water bath at 120°F for 2- 5 hours (depending on how intense you want it). You can always heat it at a lower temperature and infuse it for longer if you want to preserve enzymes, color, and flavor nuance.
3. Strain it into a clean jar.
4. Cool and enjoy.

*Note: If you use fresh chiles, store the finished honey in the refrigerator.

Make hot honey in the oven:

If your oven goes to super low temperatures, you can replicate the sous-vide process above in the oven.

The key is very low heat for a long time.

1. Heat the oven to 140°F or lower.
2. Combine honey and chile flakes or sliced fresh chiles in a clean jar, and loosely cover.
3. Place on a sheet pan and gently heat until spicy (2- 5 hours).
4. Strain it into a clean jar.
5. Cool and enjoy.

how to use hot honey:

While I could drink hot honey all day and be happy, it’s a lot more versatile than that. Here’s a huge list of food that would be elevated with the spicy sweet kick of hot honey: 

• Drizzle on pizza
• Serve with a cheese and charcuterie board
• Toss fried chicken in it
• Drizzle over fried goat cheese balls
• Glaze spiral-cut ham with it
• In peanut butter sandwiches
• Sweeten your tea with it
• Spread on cornbread
• Drizzle over burrata toast
• Glaze and grill salmon or shrimp
• Drizzle over fresh fruit (honeydew, nectarines, raspberries!)
• Pour it over baked camembert
• Drizzle on baked sweet potatoes (add blue cheese crumbles!) or sweet potato fries
• On roasted butternut squash, carrots or Brussels sprouts
• Mix with butter and spread on flaky biscuits
• On grilled stone fruit (like peaches)
• In fresh ricotta crepes
• Mix it into BBQ sauce for chicken and pork
• In your hot toddy!
• Mix it into a homemade vinaigrette
• On avocado toast
• Drizzle it on crispy bacon and sprinkle with cracked black pepper
• In an old fashioned cocktail (swap hot honey in for the maple syrup)

A few more hot honey tips:

Watch out for fumes! Because we’re reducing the hot honey in the microwave and evaporating hot sauce liquid, the microwave will turn into a hot box of chile pepper fumes. Just don’t stick your head in there.

Use average honey. Don’t waste your money on expensive, nuanced, or raw honey here. We’re nuking it in the microwave and smothering it in spice. Pick the cheapest honey and go to town mixing up a custom elixir!

Skip the chile flakes: If you don’t want to bother with straining out the chile flakes, you can skip them. Sub in a pinch of cayenne if you want the heat. The texture can get a little grainy if you add a lot (which is why I prefer infusing and straining chile flakes), but ¼ teaspoon or less is delicious and texturally insignificant. 

halve this recipe:

You can easily halve this recipe. Measure out the honey by tablespoons (4 tablespoons = ¼ cup). Then stir in 1 tbsp hot sauce and 1 tbsp red chile flakes. Microwave for 1 minute, stir, then microwave for 5 more 20-second intervals.

Is infused honey safe to store at room temperature?

If you add anything with more water content than honey to the honey, the mixture needs to be stored in the refrigerator.

Hot sauce, vinegar, fresh chiles, etc: just refrigerate it.

That said, if you infuse the honey with dried chile flakes or dried peppers that don’t add any liquid, it is safe to store at room temperature. Read more about the safety of infusing honey.

more condiment recipes to try!

chili crisp recipe

how to make chili oil

peach apricot mostarda

mustard butter

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