What to Do With a Jar of Chilli Jam

By Jodie Smith, Product & Hamper Manager at The Gourmet Pantry.

Chilli jam belongs anywhere cheese, cold meat, eggs or seafood need something sweet and sharp beside them: a cracker, a toastie, a bowl of prawns, a spoonful stirred through mayonnaise. The only real decision is which jar, because sweet and hot are two different condiments.

What is actually in the jar

Chilli jam is chilli cooked down with sugar and vinegar until it sets. That is the whole trick. The sugar gives it body and a glossy set, the vinegar stops it turning cloying, and the chilli is the only part worth arguing about. What comes out is spoonable rather than pourable, sticky enough to sit on a cracker without sliding off the edge, and sweet before it is hot.

That last point is why chilli jam is not sweet chilli sauce. Sauce is thin and built for dipping, so it runs off anything solid. Jam holds its shape, which means it can sit on a wedge of cheese, spread through a sandwich or glaze the outside of something in the last minutes of cooking. Swapping a squeeze bottle for a jar changes what the condiment is capable of, not just how it tastes.

Some chilli jams are built on tomato, which makes them softer, redder and closer to a relish than a preserve. If that is the version you have in mind, Bill's Spicy Tomato Chutney covers similar ground with tomato leading and the spice sitting behind it.

Sweet, hot, or chunky

We stock two chilli jams, from two Australian makers, and the labels do the choosing for you. One says sweet. One says hot. They are not interchangeable, and the third jar people reach for on the same shelf of gourmet condiments is a chutney rather than a jam, which changes the texture again.

The sweet one comes from the Daylesford Condiment Company and is the jar to buy if you are not sure. It sits next to cold or barbecued meat, poultry and seafood, and it is very good with cheese or with nothing but fresh crusty bread. Nobody pushes it away for being too hot, which is what you want from a jar going onto a shared board or into a gift. It is one of ten, and we have all ten Daylesford jars explained if the rest of the range interests you.

Bill's Hot Chilli Jam, from the Tasmanian Gourmet Kitchen, is the one to buy for yourself. Heat that is announced on the label is usually real, so treat the first spoonful as a test rather than a serve. It works best where there is fat or starch to sit in: melted cheese, a fried egg, pastry, a bowl of noodles.

The Woodcutters chutney is the chunky answer to the same question. It is good with anything off the barbecue, it works as a marinade, and it holds its shape in a bowl rather than pooling, which matters on a hot day when a looser condiment goes to liquid.

Nine things to do with a jar, mildest first

The list below runs from the uses that want the sweet jar to the ones that can take the hot one. Nothing stops you going the other way, but the order is the shortest route to a jar that gets finished rather than pushed to the back of the fridge.

1. Cheddar on a cracker. The simplest use and still the best one. A firm cheddar, a cracked black pepper crackerthin at $3.49 a packet, and a quarter teaspoon of sweet chilli jam on top. The pepper in the cracker meets the chilli in the jam, so the two work as one flavour rather than two.

2. Beside cold prawns. Put the jar out with seafood instead of a bought cocktail sauce. Loosen two tablespoons with a squeeze of lime so it becomes dippable, and keep it sweet: chilli that is too hot flattens the sweetness of a good prawn instead of lifting it.

3. Stirred through cream cheese. One heaped tablespoon into a 250g block of softened cream cheese, beaten until it streaks rather than blends. That is a dip in about a minute, and it is the one job where the Woodcutters chutney beats both jams, because the chunks stay visible. Serve it with something rigid enough to scoop, flatbread or a seed crisp rather than a thin cracker, and put it out cold from the fridge.

4. On the cheese board. Sweet chilli jam does the job a fruit paste does, sweetness against salt, but with a warm edge behind it. Give it its own small bowl and its own spoon so it does not end up smeared across the brie. Our guide to building a Christmas cheese board sets out how much cheese to buy alongside it, and which cracker goes with which cheese deals with what goes underneath.

5. In a toasted sandwich. A thin scrape on one side, cheese on the other, and no more, because jam that meets a hot pan will run out of the edges and burn on. This is where the hot jar starts to make sense: melted cheese blunts chilli more than people expect.

6. On a fried egg. Half a teaspoon on the yolk of a fried or poached egg, or through scrambled eggs at the very end. The richness of the yolk takes heat easily, which makes breakfast the most forgiving place to find out how hot your jar really is.

7. Whisked into mayonnaise. One teaspoon of jam to three tablespoons of mayonnaise gives you a sauce for chips, a chicken sandwich, a burger or cold roast meat. Use the hot jar here. Mayonnaise dilutes the chilli, so the sweet jam can disappear into it and leave you with sweet mayonnaise.

8. Under pastry. A teaspoon in the base of a sausage roll before it is rolled, or a dot on a pie, or spooned into a pastry case with something creamy on top. Pastry is fat and salt in a crisp shell, so it carries a hot jam without complaint.

9. As a glaze, right at the end. Brush it onto chicken wings, pork belly, salmon or halloumi in the last five to ten minutes of cooking, never at the start. It is mostly sugar, so it catches and blackens quickly under a grill or over a direct flame. Move the food to the cooler side of the barbecue first, glaze, then watch it.

That last point is the one worth remembering. Chilli jam is a condiment that can be cooked with rather than a cooking sauce, and the difference shows up as burnt sugar if you get it the wrong way round.

The same nine uses work with either jar, but they do not feel the same. The sweet jam reads as sweetness with a warm finish, so it can carry a whole cheese board on its own. The hot jam reads as heat with sweetness holding it together, so it wants a partner: cheese, egg yolk, mayonnaise, pastry, something fatty enough to soften the edges. Buy the jar that matches how you eat, not the one that sounds more impressive on the shelf.

How much to use, and how long the jar lasts

Start with less than feels right. A quarter to a half teaspoon per cracker, a teaspoon per sandwich, a tablespoon in a bowl for dipping. Chilli builds as you eat, so a serve that tastes mild on the first cracker will be noticeable by the fourth, and a jar spread thin goes a long way further than one spread generously.

Sealed, a jar waits in the cupboard until the date printed on it. Once it is open it lives in the fridge, and a clean dry spoon every time is the difference between a jar that lasts months and one that grows a skin on top. Cold jam stiffens, so let it sit out for ten minutes before it goes on a board and it will spread properly.

Glass is heavy and jars are the part of an order people underbuy. If a jar is going into a Christmas order, put it in the same parcel as everything else rather than ordering it on its own in December.

Chilli jam questions we get asked

What do you eat chilli jam with?

Cheese first, cold or barbecued meat second, then seafood, eggs and anything wrapped in pastry. It also goes into things rather than onto them: cream cheese, mayonnaise, a dressing, the pan juices at the end of cooking. If a plate tastes rich, salty or flat, a small spoonful of chilli jam usually fixes it.

What is the difference between chilli jam and sweet chilli sauce?

Texture and purpose. Sweet chilli sauce is thin and pourable, made to be dipped into, and it slides off solid food. Chilli jam is cooked down with more sugar until it sets, so it holds its shape on a cracker, spreads through a sandwich and can be brushed on as a glaze. The jam is also usually the hotter of the two.

Does chilli jam need refrigerating once opened?

Yes. Sugar and vinegar make an unopened jar shelf stable, but once the seal is broken it belongs in the fridge, with the lid wiped clean and a dry spoon each time. Follow the storage line on the label rather than any general rule, since it is the maker who knows what is in the jar.

Which cheese goes with chilli jam?

A firm cheddar is the reliable answer, because salt and sweetness are made for each other. After that, try a washed rind, a manchego style hard cheese, or halloumi grilled and topped while it is still squeaking. Keep a hot jam away from delicate goat cheese and away from a good blue, both of which have enough going on already.

Can you cook with chilli jam?

Yes, with one rule: add it late. It is largely sugar, so it burns if it goes into a hot pan or under a grill early. Brush it on in the last five to ten minutes of roasting or barbecuing, stir it into a stir fry or pan sauce off the heat, or whisk it into a dressing where it never gets hot at all.

Start with one jar

If the jar is for a household, a cheese plate or a gift, buy the Daylesford sweet chilli jam. If it is for you and you already own a hot sauce you like, buy Bill's hot chilli jam. Both sit with the rest of our gourmet condiments, with free Australia-wide shipping on orders over $100. Orders placed before 12pm on a weekday are dispatched the same day from our Corio, VIC warehouse, tracked with Australia Post. If the jars are meant as a present rather than a cupboard restock, our Christmas hampers are packed by hand by the same team.