Is it hot in here or is it just me? Ha ha…jk. We’re just getting over a heatwave so no need to get salty over it…ha! Get it? Check out the title….salt…lol.
Although I’m not really a “spice person”, my husband is into hot stuff, which is why his wife is such a SMOKEshow! Based on all these lame puns, you hopefully realized this isn’t some weed post. We’re talking about jalapeno salt, homeboy.
As I said, my Polish taste buds aren’t that good with spice, but this jalapeño salt has a range of heat that you can choose. Leave in the seeds for a lot of heat, remove them all for a more mild taste or be somewhere in the middle. Don’t forget there is also heat in the pith (the white part). I wanted it to be in the medium range of spiciness, so I saved half the pith and seeds.
This recipe calls for a bunch of jalapeños, like a boatload, as well as a food dehydrator. It’s the quickest and most efficient way to dehydrate. Some people use ovens for dehydrating fruits but I read online that it’s not a great method for jalapeños because minimum oven temperature might be too high. It would take a long time to fully dehydrate them, you need to constantly turn them and the taste might not turn out quite right. But I mean, if those aren’t reasons for you, go ahead and see but it’d be a shame to eff up that many jalapenos.
Even though a dehydrator is the best method, it’s still a bit time consuming, taking about 15+ hours. I also recommend doing it outside because the jalapeño fumes get a bit spicy on your eyeballs. It outside for most of the day but then the stupid raccoons that have been hanging out and shitting on our shed roof were really intrigued by the scent. I could see them eye humping the shit out of my jalapeños, so I had to bring them in and just deal with the spicy eyes.
So why make jalapeño salt? Because it’s the spice of life, or should I say, the spice of vida (that’s life in Spanish, right?). You can add it in anything where you’d normally add salt, so meat rubs, eggs, roasted vegetables, or my personal favourite, cocktails! It’s a great rimmer (he he) on a spicy margarita, say one that includes jalapeño infused tequila. It’s also great in a caesar with the jalapeño infused tequila.
Jalapeño Salt
1-1.5 kg jalapeños
1 cup salt
Dehydrator
Thoroughly wash and dry your jalapeños. Cut off the stems and then cut them down the middle lengthwise. Wear gloves or your eyes/privates might pay for it later. Make sure they’re all relatively the same size as it’ll make for a more even dehydration. Remove as much or as little of the pith/seeds as you’d like depending on your spice preference. Mine is wuss level.
Lay the jalapeño slices on the food dehydrator trays. Try to keep them spaced apart so that each slice can get even air circulation. Turn on the dehydrator to 140°C and let it run for 14-15 hours. You can periodically check on them, which I did at about 10 hours in or so.
Once the jalapeños are dried, they’re like tiny, shriveled bookmarks. Toss them into a blender or food processor and blend. If you have coarse salt, you can add them in once the jalapeño become smaller chunks, but not smaller granules. Otherwise, you can just add the salt once the jalapeños have been broken down to a medium-coarse grind.
Now you have jalapeño salt! This recipe yielded about 1.5 cups. Jalapeño salt keeps for a long time, basically forever since salt is a preservative.