Give Classic Coleslaw Some Sweet Heat With One Ingredient
Despite the abundance of alternative coleslaw recipes, a classic coleslaw will never be refused. Creamy, slightly sweet, and crunchy coleslaw is an American mainstay served at barbecue restaurants, fried chicken fast food chains, and backyard burger grills. For a simple upgrade to your favorite classic coleslaw recipe, try hot honey. Hot honey is a fashionable condiment popularized by pizzerias that use it to drizzle over pepperoni slices. However, it's quickly becoming a household staple with infinite uses.
With equal parts sweet and heat, hot honey is the perfect complement to a tangy mayonnaise-based dressing. The sweet and rich flavors in honey temper the spice from chili peppers, bringing a subtle heat to your coleslaw that both vinegar and mayonnaise will further neutralize. Consequently, a hot honey-spiked coleslaw is a sophisticated spin that even spice-averse eaters will enjoy. Honey is a complex sweetener with floral, grassy notes that will enhance the vegetal, bitter shredded cabbage.
Since sugar is a common ingredient in coleslaw dressing, you can swap it for hot honey. Honey is sweeter than white sugar, so you should be conservative when making the swap. Start by adding half the amount of honey the as sugar in a typical recipe, adding extra to taste a tablespoon at a time.
How to make hot honey
The easiest way to make your own hot honey is through an infusion. A two-ingredient recipe boils plain honey and fresh sliced jalapenos together in a shallow saucepan for a few minutes, turning the burner off and leaving it to infuse for 90 minutes. You can use the infused honey in coleslaw dressing and even spoon on a few of the honey-drenched jalapeno slices for texture and extra heat. You can also try this recipe for hot honey from Tasting Table which boils hot honey with Calabrian chilies and lime juice.
If you want a more complex hot honey, you could use a mixture of red chili flakes and hot sauce with a splash of cider vinegar to balance the heat. The same infusion method of boiling the ingredients together and letting them sit applies. The main difference is that the chili flakes and hot sauce diffuse more evenly throughout the honey, giving it an almost chili oil-like appearance. Since vinegar is a common ingredient in coleslaw dressing, a cider vinegar hot honey might substitute for both sugar and vinegar in your dressing.
If you don't make your own hot honey infusion, you can still add hot honey to coleslaw by adding honey and hot sauce separately to the dressing. For instance, you could add equal parts honey and sriracha sauce to the mayonnaise-based sauce. Honey and Tabasco sauce or salsa Valentina would also be a good duo.