Spicy Food Reviews (and Recipes)

Where Fire Meets Flavor: Covering Foods That Bring the Heat!

Recipe Perks: Treat a Recipe as a Template not a Rulebook

I’m always looking in magazines, in books, and online at recipes and finding quite a few that look rather tasty. But while scanning these and picking which ones I want to try, I rarely end up following them to the letter. I look at them more as inspiration and I take plenty of liberties to adjust them as I see necessary. For new cooks, this may not be the best approach as you are working to understand how everything comes together. But as you...

The Chicken Sandwich Wars: Chick-Fil-A Grilled Spicy Deluxe

Bottom Line: This is a healthier alternative to the fried chicken filet sandwich and it brings some heat with a little less guilt. Chick-Fil-A is a known destination for good chicken (as you might expect from the name), and their regular spicy chicken sammy (which uses the fried breast filet) is definitely a strong contender in the current Chicken Sandwich Wars. But now they are upping their game with a (relatively) healthier version that...

Review: Tapatio Ramen

Updated I have to start out this review with a confession: I am no fan of ramen noodles. I ate enough of them in my college years that I had decided I could go the rest of my days without popping open another package of those dehydrated noodles. But . . . never say never. When that winter storm came through Texas a couple of weeks ago and we had a mid-week break before more snow was bearing down on us (Texans don’t understand that white stuff...

Go-To Hot Sauce: Trader Joe’s Italian Bomba Hot Pepper Sauce

I stumbled upon this Italian hot sauce about a year and a half ago while wandering through Trader Joe’s. Since then, I have been hooked on it and have to have a jar ready to go at all times, making this the second of two go-to hot sauces I get from TJ’s (more on the other one in an upcoming post). The sauce is made from Calabrian chili peppers “sourced from a trusted pepper cultivator in Calabria, Italy” according to the website. Those...