People have been cooking with chilli peppers for centuries, but somewhere along the way simply making food “hot” stopped being enough.
Around the world, different cultures have developed dishes in which chilli is not an optional condiment or background flavour. It is one of the main events.
We’re talking about bowls of curry powerful enough to make experienced chilli lovers reconsider their life choices; Chinese hot pots glowing red with dried chillies and Sichuan peppercorns; Korean chicken coated in so much chilli paste it is literally called fire chicken; and salads containing enough fresh bird’s eye chillies to make the word “salad” feel seriously misleading.
At Rock A Doodle Do, this is very much our territory.
We have spent years working with everything from Scotch Bonnets, Habaneros and Dorset Nagas to Ghost Chillies, Trinidad Scorpions and Carolina Reapers. Our philosophy has always been that serious heat should never mean sacrificing flavour. That same principle can be found in many of the world's great spicy dishes: underneath the chilli is usually a carefully balanced combination of sweetness, acidity, smoke, spices, aromatics and umami.
You can explore our Belfast-made hot sauce range if you're looking for an easy way to turn up the heat in your own kitchen.
So which dishes deserve a place among the hottest foods on Earth?
There is no scientific league table. The heat of dishes such as Phaal, jungle curry or papaya salad can vary dramatically depending on the restaurant, region, chilli variety and – most importantly – the person cooking it. Consider this a journey from extremely spicy to potentially ridiculous rather than an absolute Scoville-based ranking.
And because looking at spicy food is only half the fun, we've included a recipe for every dish.
If your idea of spicy food begins and ends with fresh chillies, Ethiopia's Doro Wat demonstrates just how complex chilli heat can become.
Doro Wat – also spelled Doro Wot – is a slow-cooked Ethiopian chicken stew built around onions, spiced butter, ginger, garlic and berbere.
Berbere is the key. This intensely aromatic spice blend typically combines chilli with spices such as coriander, cardamom, ginger, fenugreek and cloves. Rather than delivering the sudden blast of a raw chilli, Doro Wat creates a deep, warming heat that develops as you eat.
The onions are cooked slowly until richly concentrated before the berbere is incorporated. Chicken is then braised in the heavily spiced sauce, with boiled eggs traditionally added towards the end.
It isn't necessarily the most destructive dish on this list, but a cook with a generous hand when measuring the berbere can make it extraordinarily powerful.
Serves 4
Ingredients
Method
Cook the onions in a heavy saucepan over a low heat for around 20 minutes, stirring regularly. Add the butter, garlic and ginger and cook for another two minutes.
Stir in the berbere, cardamom and tomato purée. Cook gently until intensely fragrant.
Add the chicken and turn everything thoroughly through the spice mixture. Pour in the stock, cover and simmer for approximately 40 minutes.
Remove the lid and reduce until you have a thick, dark sauce. Add the boiled eggs for the final five minutes.
Serve traditionally with injera, or use rice or flatbread if injera isn't available.
This might be one of the most dangerous-looking innocuous dishes in the world.
Tam Mak Hoong, the Lao version of green papaya salad, combines crisp unripe papaya with lime, garlic, tomatoes, fermented fish sauce and fresh chillies.
Lots of fresh chillies.
Recipes vary from household to household, but bird's eye chillies are commonly pounded directly into the dressing, releasing their oils throughout the salad. Lao versions can also contain padaek – a deeply savoury fermented fish condiment that gives Tam Mak Hoong its distinctive funky character.
The Lao food resource Pha Khao Lao notes that chilli quantities can be altered according to taste, while other traditional versions use combinations of fresh and dried bird's eye chillies.
Unlike a curry, there is very little fat to soften the capsaicin. You get chilli, citrus and fermented savouriness delivered straight to the palate.
Serves 4
Ingredients
Method
Peel the papaya and shred it into long strips.
In a large mortar, lightly pound the garlic and chillies together. Add the long beans and bruise rather than completely crushing them.
Add the tomatoes, fish sauce, padaek, lime juice, tamarind and sugar. Mix until the sugar dissolves.
Add the papaya and pound very lightly while turning everything together with a spoon.
Taste for the classic balance of sour, salty, funky and seriously spicy.
Serve immediately with sticky rice.
Mexican cuisine has given the world some legendary chilli dishes, but Aguachile deserves considerably more recognition among serious heat seekers.
The name translates roughly as “chilli water”, which should provide some warning.
Associated particularly with Sinaloa on Mexico's Pacific coast, aguachile traditionally combines seafood with lime juice and a chilli-heavy dressing. Modern green versions frequently use serrano chillies along with coriander and lime.
The result is simultaneously fresh, sharp and brutally direct.
There is no rich gravy or cheese between you and the chilli. Fresh serranos are blended straight into the citrus dressing, meaning every mouthful carries both the acidity of lime and the immediate heat of fresh green chilli.
Serves 4 as a starter
Ingredients
Method
Blend the serrano chillies, coriander, garlic, lime juice and salt until bright green.
Thinly slice the cucumber and red onion and arrange them on a serving plate with the prawns.
Pour the green chilli mixture generously over everything and leave for around ten minutes before adding sliced avocado.
Serve cold with crisp tostadas.
Traditional aguachile frequently uses raw seafood marinated in citrus. For a simple home recipe we've specified cooked prawns, because citrus juice should not be relied upon to make potentially contaminated raw seafood microbiologically safe.
For even more heat, add an additional serrano or a small amount of hotter chilli.
Jerk is sometimes marketed outside Jamaica as little more than a smoky BBQ seasoning.
Proper jerk can be an entirely different beast.
One of its defining ingredients is the Scotch Bonnet chilli, famous for combining substantial heat with a distinctively fruity, tropical flavour.
The peppers work beautifully alongside allspice – known as pimento in Jamaica – thyme, garlic, ginger, spring onion and warming spices. Traditional preparations then introduce smoke and char during cooking.
The combination is magnificent: sweet, fragrant, smoky and ferociously hot when enough Scotch Bonnet is used. Contemporary jerk recipes commonly use one or more Scotch Bonnets in the marinade.
Scotch Bonnet is exactly the sort of chilli we love at Rock A Doodle Do because the flavour is every bit as interesting as its heat. If this is your style of chilli, our Scotch Symphony Scotch Bonnet Hot Sauce combines Scotch Bonnet with mango, orange and pineapple.
Serves 4
Ingredients
Method
Blend every ingredient except the chicken into a thick marinade.
Coat the chicken completely, cover and refrigerate overnight if possible.
Cook over a charcoal BBQ for maximum flavour, turning regularly until charred and fully cooked. Alternatively, roast at 200°C for approximately 35–45 minutes, depending on the size of your chicken pieces.
Finish briefly under a hot grill to create those characteristic blackened edges.
Sri Lankan food deserves considerably more attention from chilli lovers.
Where many curries use lightly toasted spices, Sri Lankan cooking can take roasting considerably further, creating intensely dark curry powders with extraordinary depth.
Black chicken curry uses toasted coriander, cumin and other spices to produce its signature appearance and flavour. Curry leaves, garlic, ginger, black pepper and chillies add further complexity.
What makes Sri Lankan curry particularly interesting is that heat can come from several directions simultaneously: fresh green chilli, dried red chilli, chilli powder and black pepper.
That produces a different experience from simply putting one superhot chilli into a sauce.
Serves 4
Ingredients
Method
Brown the chicken in a heavy pan, remove and set aside.
Cook the onion until deeply coloured before adding garlic, ginger, green chilli, curry leaves and cinnamon.
Add the curry powder, chilli powder and black pepper and toast gently for around 30 seconds.
Stir in the tomato purée before returning the chicken to the pan.
Add coconut milk and water. Cover and cook gently for 30 minutes, then uncover and reduce until thick and dark.
Finish with lime juice and adjust the chilli seasoning before serving with rice.
Thai curry can sometimes fool people into expecting something rich, sweet and coconut-heavy.
Gaeng Pa, or Thai jungle curry, does away with that safety net.
Jungle curry is traditionally water-based rather than coconut-milk based, producing a lighter but often dramatically hotter curry. Its flavour comes from curry paste, fresh herbs, chillies, peppercorns and aromatic vegetables.
Thai cook Pailin Chongchitnant describes jungle curry as herbaceous and fiercely spicy, with the absence of coconut milk helping preserve that direct chilli impact.
Green peppercorns, makrut lime leaves, Thai basil and fingerroot can all contribute to the distinctive aroma.
This is a fantastic spicy dish because the heat doesn't bury its other ingredients. Instead, chilli sits alongside a forest of fresh herbal flavours.
Serves 4
Ingredients
Method
Heat a tablespoon of oil and fry the curry paste for two minutes until fragrant.
Add approximately 200ml stock and stir until the curry paste has completely dispersed.
Add the chicken and remaining stock and simmer gently for around ten minutes.
Add aubergine, beans, bamboo shoots, chillies, fish sauce, sugar, peppercorns and lime leaves.
Continue cooking until the vegetables are tender but retain some bite.
Add the basil immediately before serving.
Want to make it considerably hotter? Add fresh bird's eye chilli at the table rather than simply increasing the curry paste.
Few dishes advertise their intentions as clearly as Buldak.
The Korean name combines bul, meaning fire, with dak, meaning chicken.
Fire chicken.
That's refreshingly straightforward.
Buldak combines chicken with a thick sauce based around Korean chilli flakes – gochugaru – and gochujang chilli paste. Garlic, ginger, soy, sugar or syrup create a spicy, salty and slightly sweet glaze that becomes intensely concentrated around the meat.
Korean cook Maangchi's version uses a substantial quantity of gochugaru together with hot pepper paste and describes the dish simply as “super-spicy chicken”.
Some versions are covered in melted mozzarella, creating cheese buldak. The dairy takes some of the edge off the chilli while adding the sort of outrageous comfort-food quality that makes the dish dangerously easy to keep eating.
Serves 4
Ingredients
Method
Cut the chicken into bite-sized pieces.
Mix the gochugaru, gochujang, soy, sesame oil, honey, crushed garlic, ginger and vinegar into a paste.
Coat the chicken thoroughly.
Cook in a heavy frying pan over medium-high heat until caramelised and completely cooked through.
Add a splash of water if the sauce becomes too thick before the chicken is ready.
Scatter with spring onions and sesame seeds.
For cheese buldak, cover with mozzarella and place under a hot grill until bubbling and browned.
Imagine ordering chicken and receiving what appears to be an enormous bowl of dried chillies.
Somewhere underneath them is your dinner.
That is part of the joy of La Zi Ji, also known as Chongqing chicken or Sichuan mala chicken.
Small pieces of chicken are fried until crisp before being tossed with an astonishing quantity of dried chillies, garlic, ginger and Sichuan peppercorn.
The result isn't simply hot.
It is mala.
This famous Sichuan combination describes the interplay of chilli heat with the tingling, almost electric numbing effect of Sichuan peppercorns.
Authentic versions can use several cups of dried chillies, although diners generally aren't expected to eat every whole chilli in the bowl.
Serves 4
Ingredients
Method
Cut the chicken into small cubes and marinate with the soy and Shaoxing wine for 20 minutes.
Dust with cornflour.
Shallow fry until crisp and golden, then remove from the pan.
Pour off most of the oil.
Fry the Sichuan peppercorns, followed by the dried chillies. Keep everything moving: the goal is to make them fragrant rather than burnt.
Add garlic, ginger, chilli flakes and spring onion.
Return the chicken, add the sugar and toss everything together rapidly.
Finish with sesame seeds.
For the proper visual effect, there should appear to be far too many chillies. That is precisely the point.
If La Zi Ji is spicy, Chongqing hot pot takes the same basic philosophy and turns it into an entire dining experience.
A traditional Chongqing hot pot broth can be a sea of chilli oil, dried peppers, Sichuan peppercorns and aromatic spices, historically enriched with beef tallow.
Raw meat, mushrooms, tofu, vegetables and noodles are cooked at the table directly in the simmering broth.
Every ingredient therefore emerges coated in spicy oil.
Chongqing hot pot is known specifically for its intensely spicy broth, built around chillies and Sichuan peppercorns rather than the gentler broths used in many other styles of Chinese hot pot.
The effect is extraordinary.
First comes the chilli heat.
Then the peppercorn starts numbing your lips.
Then you eat another mouthful.
And another.
Serves 4–6
For the broth
For dipping
Use any combination of thinly sliced beef, chicken, prawns, tofu, pak choi, mushrooms, noodles, lotus root and cabbage.
Method
Heat the oil gently and fry the ginger, garlic, chilli bean paste, dried chillies and Sichuan peppercorns.
Add the star anise and cinnamon.
Once aromatic, add the stock and soy sauce.
Simmer for approximately 30 minutes.
Transfer to a tabletop hot pot if you have one and keep the broth gently bubbling while everyone cooks their chosen ingredients.
The longer the meal continues, the more concentrated the broth becomes – and the hotter things can get.
Yes, the number-one dish on our list is associated with Britain.
More specifically, Britain's South Asian restaurant culture.
Phaal – sometimes written Phall or Phaal curry – developed in Bangladeshi-owned curry houses in Birmingham and earned its reputation as something considerably hotter than a vindaloo. Modern extreme versions can feature combinations of Ghost Chilli, Habanero, Scotch Bonnet and even Carolina Reaper.
This is where spicy food stops being dinner for some people and starts becoming an endurance sport.
There is no single definitive Phaal recipe. That is almost part of the mythology surrounding it. One restaurant's version may rely heavily on chilli powder while another uses fresh superhot peppers.
The most extreme versions can combine multiple varieties.
That means Ghost Chilli heat.
Naga heat.
Scotch Bonnet heat.
And potentially Carolina Reaper heat.
All in one curry.
For anyone who hasn't cooked with superhot chillies before: gloves are sensible, ventilation is important and touching your face while preparing them is a spectacularly bad idea.
At Rock A Doodle Do, Carolina Reaper is familiar territory. Our Fear The Reaper Carolina Reaper Hot Sauce contains Reaper alongside fruit, vegetables, tamarind, garlic and ginger, while our current range goes all the way to seriously extreme sauces for dedicated chilli heads.
Serves 4 brave people
Ingredients
Method
Cook the onions in oil over medium-low heat until deeply browned.
Add garlic and ginger and cook for another minute.
Stir in cumin, coriander, turmeric, garam masala, pepper and chilli powder.
Add the fresh chillies and your chosen superhot chilli extremely carefully.
Stir in the tomato purée followed by the chopped tomatoes.
Cook until the tomatoes have reduced and darkened.
Add your meat and coat thoroughly with the spice mixture.
Pour in the stock, season and simmer gently until the meat is tender and the sauce has become thick.
Finish with fresh coriander.
If you want more heat, do not automatically throw another Reaper into the pan. Increase the intensity gradually. Superhot chillies are dramatically more powerful than standard supermarket varieties.
For an easier way to push a curry upwards one controlled drop at a time, use a very hot finished sauce rather than adding another whole superhot chilli.
Interestingly, chilli heat isn't technically a taste in the way sweetness, saltiness, bitterness or sourness are.
The sensation comes largely from capsaicin, a compound found in chilli peppers.
Capsaicin interacts with receptors associated with sensing heat. Your food therefore isn't physically burning your mouth, even though your nervous system is receiving a remarkably convincing message suggesting otherwise.
Different chillies can deliver the sensation differently.
A fresh bird's eye chilli can appear sharp and immediate. Scotch Bonnets bring powerful heat alongside tropical fruitiness. Ghost Chillies can develop more slowly. Carolina Reapers are infamous for creeping up, and an enormous, lingering burn.
And then Sichuan cuisine throws another sensation into the equation completely.
Sichuan pepper isn't a chilli and its distinctive tingling, numbing character comes from different compounds. Combine it with capsaicin-heavy chillies and you get the celebrated mala experience found in dishes such as Chongqing hot pot and La Zi Ji.
This is one reason great spicy food isn't simply about chasing a Scoville number.
The best dishes build layers of heat.
There is an enormous difference between food that tastes fantastic and happens to be extremely hot and food that has been made hot simply for the sake of punishment.
We will choose the first every time.
Fresh chillies can introduce fruitiness and vegetal flavours. Dried chillies add depth and sometimes smokiness. Fermented chilli pastes such as gochujang introduce umami and sweetness. Scotch Bonnets work brilliantly with tropical fruit. Chipotle works with smoke and BBQ flavours. Superhot chillies need ingredients capable of standing alongside them.
That is the same principle behind our own sauces.
For example, the Carolina Reaper in Fear The Reaper is combined with ingredients including mango, tamarind, maple, garlic and ginger rather than existing purely as a vehicle for pain. Our Carolina Reaper Banshee BBQ Sauce balances extreme chilli heat against sweetness, tomato and smoke.
You can therefore use hot sauce almost like seasoning.
A few drops can transform chilli con carne, curry, noodles, stir-fries, wings, tacos or burgers without changing the basic structure of the recipe.
Then add more if you're still smiling.
There probably isn't one definitive answer.
A brutally hot Phaal containing Carolina Reaper could overwhelm almost anything on this list. But a Chongqing chef could create a hot pot capable of making the average Phaal eater weep. Someone preparing Lao papaya salad might decide that ten bird's eye chillies seems slightly conservative.
Heat is also personal.
One person's unbearable is another person's Tuesday lunch.
That's one of the things we love about chilli.
There is always another pepper to discover, another recipe to try and another level of heat that seemed ridiculous right up until the moment you decided you wanted to try it.
Our top ten therefore finishes like this:
10 – Ethiopian Doro Wat
9 – Lao Tam Mak Hoong
8 – Mexican Aguachile
7 – Jamaican Jerk Chicken
6 – Sri Lankan Black Chicken Curry
5 – Thai Jungle Curry
4 – Korean Buldak
3 – Sichuan La Zi Ji
2 – Chongqing Hot Pot
1 – Phaal Curry
If that list has made you hungry rather than terrified, you're probably one of us.
You can explore the complete Rock A Doodle Do range of hot sauces and spicy BBQ sauces, including sauces made with Scotch Bonnet, Dorset Naga, Ghost Chilli, Trinidad Scorpion and Carolina Reaper.
Because when it comes to spicy food, there's hot.
There's seriously hot.
And then there's Rock A Doodle Do hot.Check out our 75% Reaper infused VIOLENT INTENTIONS
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