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I’ve got creative ideas for cooking with sriracha in fall:

1.  Soup

My light bulb moment regarding sriracha happened over a bowl of chicken noodle soup in Zoe Ma Ma, a Chinese restaurant in Boulder. The big bowl of soup included rice noodles, chicken, pickled greens, sprouts all suspended in rich, homey broth. Even with a garnish of cilantro and scallions, something was missing. Someone suggested I add Ma Ma’s homemade sriracha, and I’ve been hooked ever since. Comforting beef pho, a Vietnamese noodle soup, is also delicious with sriracha. Even a hearty vegetable soup benefits from the warming heat of sriracha.

2.  Glazed Roast Chicken

Basting a whole chicken, Cornish hen, or chicken pieces like wings or drumsticks with sriracha is the same concept as hot wings, with an Asian twist. The heat of the oven caramelizes the sriracha sauce, deepening its flavor and keeping the meat moist. Try Martha Stewart’s recipe for Sriracha Glazed Chicken Wings.

3.  Compound Butter

In The Sriracha Cookbook, Randy Clemens makes Sriracha Butter by beating softened butter with sriracha, garlic, and parsley. He suggests rolling the sriracha butter into a log and storing it in the fridge so you can slice off a knob as needed. Melt the sriracha butter and drizzle it over popcorn. Cut off a piece and place it atop grilled steak or use the sriracha butter on your baked potato. It all sounds so good!

4.  Sriracha Scrambled Eggs

Searching Chez Pim, the blog of Pim, a world traveler, food writer/photographer, and author of The Foodie Handbook, I knew I would find a great way to cook with sriracha. Pim did not disappoint. For the ultimate comfort food, Pim whips eggs with a bit of fish sauce then fries the egg in peanut oil until they fluff up and crisp on the edges. She serves the eggs over steamed white rice with plenty of traditional Thai sriracha. Perfection.

5.  Roasted Autumn Veg with Sriracha

Sweet, creamy squash like butternut or acorn as well as pumpkin are delicious brushed with sriracha before roasting. Root vegetables like carrots and parsnips get along nicely with sriracha too. Garnish puréed root vegetable or squash soups with a swirl of sriracha sauce.

6.  Noodles & Stir-Fry

Noodles are a frequent easy weeknight supper at our house. For a pantry supper, why not clear out the cupboards and throw it all into a noodle stir fry with some sriracha? Check the vegetable crisper for lonely carrots and the freezer for a languishing bag of peas. Toss in a Tupperware of leftovers and you’ve got dinner. Here you can watch as  David Chang of Momofuku Restaurant makes an easy ramen hangover cure with sriracha. Feel like going gourmet? This recipe by Eric and Sophia Banh over at Food & Wine Magazine uses chanterelle mushrooms (which are in season during fall) in an upscale noodle stir-fry.

7.  Spicy Greens

My go to method for cooking kale is to sautée the greens in olive oil with garlic and plenty of crushed red pepper flakes. Now I’m thinking of trying my greens flavored with sriracha. Garlic and red pepper flakes give the greens some heat, but sriracha is the whole package of flavors: sweet, tangy, bright, fiery, and pungent. Try this with kale, mustard greens, chard, or collards.

8.  Sriracha & Chocolate

It may sound crazy, but chiles and chocolate is nothing new. According to Randy Clemens, author of  The Sriracha Cookbook, the Mayans used chiles with chocolate.  Another great sriracha recipe from the book is for Spiced Sriracha Truffles. It combines a small amount of sriracha with dark chocolate, cream, cinnamon, orange zest, and cocoa powder for a deep and complex truffle that you won’t soon forget. You could also try incorporating sriracha into chocolate cake and see if your family can guess the mystery ingredient.

9.  Sriracha & Lentils

Lentils and spicy sausage is a classic combination. I think sriracha incorporated into cooked lentils or lentil soup is a genius way to add umami without meat. The earthy flavor of lentils is enlivened by a shot of spicy, tangy chile sauce. Add some pickled mushrooms and you’ve just taken it over the top.

10.  Dipping Sauce

The sriracha made in the U.S. is a thick condiment, unlike the traditional dipping sauce of Thailand. Seek out the Thai sauce or make your own with a recipe from She Shimmers. Martha Stewart has a recipe for Shrimp Pot Stickers with Sriracha-Ginger Dipping Sauce or give the Sisters’ Pantry frozen dumplings a go. You can buy Sisters’ Pantry dumplings from the Boulder Farmers Market or Whole Foods in Boulder. They don’t give me anything to endorse them, I just like their dumplings because they taste good!

What is your favorite way to cook with sriracha? Let me know in the comments section. Click Here.