Burn Collective

From smoky hot sauces to umami-rich chili crisps, a new generation of makers like local label Adoboloco and Fly By Jing is redefining what it means to bring the heat.

(All photos courtesy brands.)

A great hot sauce or chili condiment isn’t about the heat; it’s about the food underneath those drizzles, dollops and shakes of spicy goodness.

“A great hot sauce complements and elevates your food. It shouldn’t overpower or take over. It’s really about balancing flavors,” says Tim Parsons, founder of Adoboloco, the Kīhei, Maui, brand known for complex, layered sweet-tart flavors that has landed on Serious Eats’ “Best
of” lists and earned accolades in Food & Wine. Adoboloco has also been featured on the celebrity interview series Hot Ones, where host Sean Evans and A-list guests work their way through wings slathered in hot sauces.

Hot sauces are vinegar- or water-based, the most ubiquitous being the Louisiana brand Tabasco. In Hawai‘i, two shakes of chili pepper water is de rigueur over mac salad and stew. Chili crisps, the bright red jars of oil and chili pepper flakes, until the past decade, were mostly found sitting quietly next to the soy sauce bottle in most Chinese restaurants.

Fly By Jing founder Jing Gao changed the seating arrangement, putting chili crisp front and center alongside gourmet hot sauces. Gao says no single adjective fully captures what chili crisp can do. ”At its best, it’s a perfect marriage of flavor and texture — intensely savory, full of umami, a bit tingly, crispy, and layered in a way that awakens your taste buds. It makes bland foods sing, balances the sweetness of desserts, and adds crunch where you didn’t even know you needed it.”

Parsons and Gao are part of a new generation of food creatives reshaping the perception and market for chili-based condiments. With eye-catching packaging and product names like “Fiya Fiya” and “Kolohe Kid,” Adoboloco is impossible to miss on a grocery shelf.

Gao says she was first met with skepticism. “When I first started selling chili crisp, there was definitely doubt from all sides. Investors weren’t sure how to categorize it. Consumers in the U.S. weren’t super familiar with it. And even some people back home in China questioned whether I could translate something so deeply rooted in Sichuan culture for a global audience.

There remains a tendency to see Chinese cuisine as one-dimensional cheap takeout rather than a vast, diverse culinary world with incredible depth and regionality. So I had to be very intentional about showing, not just telling, what makes Fly By Jing different: our Sichuan heritage, our sourcing, and the care we take with every ingredient. At the same time, I knew we had to make it easy and inviting for people who’d never tasted chili crisp before.”

The brand name honors Chengdu’s legendary “fly restaurants,” humble, hole-in-the-wall eateries so good they draw crowds like flies to food. Before launching a global condiment company, Gao founded Baoism, an award-winning fast-casual restaurant in China.

Across the Pacific, in the early 2000s, Parsons was working in graphic design and branding, and his side hustle was Adoboloco — a blog devoted to his passion for the Ilocano version of chicken adobo, with people from all over the globe sharing recipes. The hot sauces started as a science project for his homeschooled kids using peppers from their yard. This was
in 2009, and one year later Adoboloco hot sauces were selling out at the Maui Swap Meet. Today, Adoboloco’s product line has expanded to include barbecue sauces, jams, and two kinds of sriracha, which is technically a hot sauce. I first fell in love with Adoboloco’s hot sauces because of their fruit-forward layers. Pineapple, guava, calamansi, passion fruit and orange are featured ingredients in popular Adoboloco hot sauces, which include a POG (passion fruit, orange and guava) hot sauce.

Like Parsons, Gao has expanded Fly By Jing to include instant ramen noodles, Sichuan peppercorns, and, most notably, a James Beard Award-winning cookbook. For Easter brunch, I drizzled her Extra Crunchy chili crisp — loaded with crispy seeds, beans, and peas that deliver an airy pop in every bite — over Korean-style steamed dashi eggs.

Make chili crisps and hot sauces your new BFF to level up cold tofu, steamed fish and chicken, or tossed with noodles and green beans for quick dinners.

Keeping a few jars and bottles in your pantry is an easy way to add depth and texture to store-bought hummus or make a quick dip with cream cheese.