How to Use Birds Eye Chilli in Your Favourite Dishes?

Birds Eye Chilli
Birds Eye Chilli

Birds eye chilli is a core ingredient in Thai cuisines, giving dishes a rich red colour. They are also popularly known as Bird peppers because their stem appears like the eye of a bird. These chillies are very hot and hence a little quantity of them is enough to add a rich, spicy flavour and beautiful red colour to any dish. These are extremely pungent and very hot and are often used in South East Asian and Chinese cooking. In this post, we have busted out the various ways to use bird’s eye chilli in your dishes. So, let’s explore all of them!

Bird’s Eye Chilli in Soups

This spice is used in most Vietnamese soups to give them a flavourful and spicy taste. You can use uncut chilli to prepare tomato soup. Just make sure you remove the seeds before using it.

Just cut the stem with a sharp knife and then cut it open from one side. Now, scrape off the seeds using a knife or a metal spoon. Your chilli is ready to use in soups. 

Bird’s Eye Chilli in Curries

Bird’s eye chilli is a central ingredient for most of the Thai curries. These chillies are extremely spicy and hot. So, depending on the level of spiciness you want in your food, you can add the desired quantity of chillies in your curry.

The pith inside is hotter than the seeds. Some people believe that pith generates more heat than the seeds. It is because the inner part is closest to the stem and therefore is the hottest. Hence, if you don’t want your curry to be too spicy, you must remove the pith and then add the chilli to the curry along with other spices.

Bird’s Eye Chilli in Salads

Though this chilli is spicy, it can be chopped into fine pieces and then added to your favourite salad to give it a pungent and spicy taste. Adding bird’s eye chilli to salads is a great idea because these chillies are known to aid in weight loss.

Consuming these chillies in the raw form boosts metabolism and water intake that further supports in weight loss. Since they are too spicy, so, it is not a good idea to eat them raw. Hence, a better alternate is to chop them in small pieces and then add them into your favourite salad as garnishing.

Bird’s Eye Chilli in Stir Fry Dishes

Whether it is beef, chicken, garlic, broccoli, fish, or any other ingredient, you can add birds eye chilli to it in order to give your dish an aromatic and flavourful taste. It is darn tasty with any type of stir fry dish. 

In order to add chilli to stir fry dishes, you have to finely chop it. You can chop it in circular rings or mince it to fine pieces and add them to the dish in the end. Adding these chillies, in the end, will add a rich aroma to the dish. It lasts longer than otherwise.

Bird’s Eye Chilli Dip / Sauce

If you want to enjoy the high spicy content of these chillies without much fuss then a great idea is to prepare dip or sauce. They have a pungent and citrus character along with an intense sting that makes them truly amazing.

You can add these chillies with varieties of your favourite ingredients like tomatoes, cumin, coriander, turmeric, and loads of other spices. Remove the chilli’s stem and blend them in a mixer to prepare a smooth paste. Adding a teaspoon of lemon juice to the chilli paste will further enhance its taste.

Bird’s eye chilli is a versatile spicy ingredient that is readily available in most of the supermarket. But if you are worried about its authenticity then it is better you buy it from a reliable online store. Once you get them to include these chillies in your everyday cooking.

Author Bio

My name is Nancy Ahuja and I am a fitness and nutrition expert and freelance blogger. I love to write on health, food and travel.