Good point. I was searching for “chili crisp” which should have found it, but searching directly for “Lao Gan Ma” found it. They prefer calling it “chili paste” but it is indeed chili crisp according to the label – the authentic Angry Grandma, no less!
Be aware that Lao Gan Ma has several products. Spicy Chili Crisp is one of them. The also have Hot Chili Sauce, which is kind of chili-oilish, but also contains peanuts and fermented kohlrabi. They also have Fried Chili in Oil, which also contains peanuts, but no onion like the Chili Crisp.
Weird thing is, now looking at the Lao Gan Ma website, their chili crisp lists peanut in their ingredients. Mine does not (which I think I mentioned earlier in this thread that I thought I remember them once having peanut) and the last few jars I’ve bought over the years did not list peanut. So I don’t know what’s up with that.
This is what I found:
Can confirm. I get mine at No Frills, a Loblaws partner offshoot.
That is the correct one. (And that’s the one you’re most likely to find, although I’ve been to a Chinese restaurant that sells Lao Ga Ma products and have accidentally picked up the Fried Chili in Oil – as that’s what they were selling – which is also really good, and the same idea as Spicy Chili Crisp.)
Regular Sichuan-style chili oil is pretty awesome, too, and not too difficult to make at home. I have about three pint jars of it right now. Great on noodles, Chinese dishes, all sorts of stuff, but different than chili crisp (though you have some crispy chilis in it) as it doesn’t have MSG in it and is often spiced with all sorts of spices (though I keep mine simple for the most part.)
What do you put in yours? Actually, would you share your recipe?
Only two brands at Meijer of chili crisp, I will h e to venture out to target to scope out their offerings.
Or make some myself. Yes recipes wanted!
Let this video be my motivation and her recipe looks simple but many ingredients
The last one I did was basically this recipe:
But I didn’t follow it completely. I skipped all the spices except for a bit of star anise; I also fried whole cloves of garlic in the oil to flavor it, but removed them at the end. (There is another recipe I use where you good minced garlic slowly in the oil for something like a half hour or so until all the water is gone, but I was in a hurry). My chili peppers were a mix of Korean gochugaru and Sichuanese chile peppers. The recipe is quite customizable.
If I want something incredibly flavorful and fragrant, I love this recipe from Saveur:
There’s also a version I make with fermented black beans that is quite good:
Thanks to this thread I bought the Trader Joe’s chili crisp and tried it tonight on some crispy naan bread. Yum!! I am now a fan.
Then you should definitively try some of the other brands. Theirs is pretty meh, IMHO, comparatively.
@Eyebrows_0f_Doom, yes, definitely look for Angry Grandma - Lao Gan Ma chili crisp. The medley (spectrum?) of flavors in the oil alone is subtly mind-blowing. And tongue-blowing, too.
I personally prefer TJ’s onion version. Not “meh” at all. Angry grandma chili crisp tastes too heavily of fermented soybeans for my taste.
Angry Grandmother has MSG.
I put the TJ’s Crunchy Jalapeño Lime and Onion on TJ’s Taiwanese Green Onion Pancakes, vastly improving the latter.
Yep. Which is partly why it rocks!
Hmm…I’ll have to try that one. I wish I had read this post about two hours ago when I was right next door to a TJ’s. (But I like the fermented stuff, though I honestly don’t notice it in the Lao Gan Ma, probably because I’m used to it.)
That’s the one I got, the Chili Onion Crunch.
Yeah, I think that’s pretty tasty, too.
Oh, wait, nevermind – that must have been the one I had, as there doesn’t seem to be a non-onion one from Trader Joe’s. (I never bought it myself – just had it at my brother’s house. The olive oil I found a bit odd, but I guess it works fine in its own context.)
The Amazon description of LaoGanma says it is “Fat free”!!! And the first ingredient on the list - Soybean oil
That would be the fault of the vendor you are looking at on Amazon; I bought mine on Amazon, and it doesn’t say “fat free” on the page of the vendor from which I purchased it.