Homemade Seasoning Series (Habanero)

I threw this up on Instagram as a teaser – and while not your usual BBQ post – I’d like to share with you the process I take in making even the smallest step personalized.

If you recall in my previous Seasonings post, I really take this kind of stuff personal. Don’t get me wrong – there’s some great seasonings out there (I see you Malcom Reed.. Matt Pittman.. among others), but I really like to personalize my cooks. I just recently made another batch of my BBQ sauce and in addition to adding the cayenne – I was super excited to add my super hots pepper blend in to make it even better.

Come with me as I walk through the satisfying, grueling, and tear-inducing process of making a habanero pepper seasoning.

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Recipe

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The Prep Table

Bought a couple pounds of habanero peppers. You’ll see the different shades of orange – and there’s a reason for that. The light orange were purchased at a relatively high-end market where it’s obvious freshness is key. The darker oranges were purchased at a market who brags about freshness, but I’ve had very disappointing results from. So I bought the place out of the good ones, needed a few more, so I settled. This is somewhere around 2-2.5 pounds of habaneros.

MrsForensicBBQ was out for most of the day, so I was able to commandeer the kitchen for spicy cooking. This was actually one of three “cooks” I did on this particular day – Bacon Wrapped Onion Rings and one more coming up. I busted my ass on this particular Sunday and it made for a tiresome – yet wholesome conclusion. My goal with visiting this markets (Plenty of them – somewhere around 10?) was to find fresh cayenne peppers. I couldn’t find them anywhere, so I went with habaneros and thought to refill my super hot pepper blend.

I sliced these up pretty thin, a little less thin as I got to the final peppers because it was a pain in the ass. A lot of these peppers (those real orange ones from the mediocre market) were black inside and made for an unappetizing pepper. But a majority of them were used, and filled up the four trays of my Presto Dehydro Electric Food Dehydrator. Got these started before noon and was hoping to get them fully dehydrated by bed time.

That about does it for the preparation. Buy peppers, slice peppers, and dehydrate. I recommend the thin slice because it’ll take less time and we can pile them up in dish for later.

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The Process

Really isn’t nothing to plugging it in and letting it go. I got these going, and went to taking care of my two other cooks for the day. I truthfully don’t remember when I took this picture, but it was definitely towards the end of the night as you can see most of the moisture has been extracted.

The real work was going to take another hour, and I was pretty tired after those other big cooks for the day – so I called it good, unplugged it for the night, and was going to deal with it the next day. The obvious question is “How bad did this stink up the kitchen?” I’ll let MrsForensicBBQ answer that one, but in my opinion – it wasn’t terrible. An overwhelming habanero odor was very present, but it wasn’t spicy.. it didn’t “pepper spray” or “tear gas” the house… it was there, but wasn’t unbearable. She still requests me not do it in the kitchen, but I push the boundaries.

Woke up the next morning, and placed everything into a bag for later. I had to work, so I wasn’t going to get around to the grind until later. The oils were mostly gone, but still present – as my fingertips would come to find out the whole day. Even in the COVID-era of hand sanitizer mania, I was habanero heavy.

So after a long day of work, I grabbed the bag of dehydrated peppers and my mortar/pestle. We are going to hand grind these peppers into that dust we all look for. Yeah, we’re going to get the seeds in there, but this isn’t for commercial consumption. When I need that spicy hit, I can rely on this to go the extra mile.

Dump a couple peppers in and grind. Grind some more. Grind again.. just keep on keeping on. Now this is where I tell you that I was a disaster. My nose was running, my eyes were watery. Sneezing and coughing. What I didn’t experience during the dehydration – I’m dealing with now. It was pretty brutal, but had to come to expect it.

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The Result

This isn’t your everyday powder for cooks. It’s for sure a supplemental for the few. That’s why you can’t go to your market and find habanero dust anywhere. They aren’t going to make a ton of money on it. However, I want it so I made it. And as miserable as the grinding experience is – it’s the satisfying end that makes it worthwhile.

I did this probably 6-8 times – fill the bowl, grind the peppers, and funnel it into a jar. Yes, not all the dust got into the jar. I breathed it in a lot, I spilled some (and tasted some). It was super hot. It was delicious. Mission complete.

So there it is. The bottom 1/3rd of the jar is the leftover blend I made awhile ago – using peppers I can’t even recall. They were super hot, so they made my super hot blend. Added the habanero dust and filled up my Flatiron Pepper grinder jar. Before you say “That specific jar can do what you just did” – I’m aware. But it’s not as good as the manual grind and we all know it.

So I have my pepper blend – added it to my homemade BBQ sauce in small amounts until I found the Hot BBQ blend I was searching for. It’ll sneak up on you, ain’t no lie… but that’s what I’m looking for. The sauce that you can taste – and feel. Don’t be afraid to go bold and do what you want. Making a habanero pepper powder isn’t for everyone, that’s why it’s not commercially available.

Thanks for checking this one out! I told you (I think) a few times in this post it was a busy day. The next post comes from the same day and that’s the reason that there weren’t a whole lot of photos – I was busy. I’m trying to get better at this picture game, but doesn’t always go as planned.

We’ll see you at the next one!

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The Recipe