Fly By Jing Mild Chili Crisp Review

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Fly By Jing Mild Sichuan Chili Crisp Review

This Fly By Jing Mild review has been on my list since the jar showed up — a brand-new flavor, and not what I expected. The Mild Sichuan Chili Crisp — in a blue jar that stands out immediately from the brand’s signature red — is Fly By Jing’s first entry into the mild/no-heat category. And I’ve been waiting to see what they’d do here, because I’ve reviewed four other Fly By Jing products and the brand has had a consistent problem: too much oil, not enough stuff. If you’re new to chili crisp as a category, the oil-to-solids ratio is the single most important visual indicator of what you’re actually getting for your money.

So the question with the Mild isn’t just “how does it taste without the heat?” It’s “did Fly By Jing fix the ratio?” I opened the jar and got my answer immediately.

Quick Facts

Serving size is one teaspoon. I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again — one teaspoon is not a realistic serving. Nobody is putting a single teaspoon of chili crisp on anything. But this is consistent with every other Fly By Jing product I’ve tested, and honestly, with most of the Sichuan-style jars on the market. At least they’re consistent about it.

Ingredient Quality

Here’s the full ingredient list: non-GMO rapeseed oil, non-GMO soybean oil, onion, textured soy protein, dried chili pepper, garlic, dried garlic flakes, salt, sugar, fried shallots (shallots, cornstarch, palm oil), yeast extract.

If you know how to read a chili crisp label, a few things jump out. Two oils — rapeseed and soybean — running the base. That’s a blend, not a single-origin oil. Rapeseed (canola) is neutral, soybean is neutral. Neither one is doing interesting flavor work the way a toasted sesame oil would. This is functional oil, not featured oil.

The third ingredient is onion. Fourth is textured soy protein, which is the most interesting line item on this label. Textured soy protein (TVP) is a processed soy product — it’s the stuff you find in veggie burgers and meat substitutes. In a chili crisp, it does something specific: it adds chew and bulk. It gives the bits substance. It’s doing a lot of structural work in this jar, and most people eating it won’t know it’s there.

Two forms of garlic show up — garlic (fifth) and dried garlic flakes (seventh). That’s deliberate. One gives you background flavor, the other gives you visible, crunchy pieces you can identify on a fork. Two forms of allium overall when you count the onion and the fried shallots further down the list. This jar is leaning hard into the allium family.

Dried chili pepper sits at position six — present but not driving the bus. For a product labeled “mild,” that’s the right placement. Sugar is there. Yeast extract at the bottom provides umami without MSG, which is a choice — not better or worse, just different from the Original’s approach.

Label claims: women owned, vegan, Asian owned. Storage instructions say refrigerate after opening and stir well before use. The marketing copy reads: “No heat, but crispy, crunchy garlic bits to create electric flavor unlike anything you’ve ever tasted.” That “no heat” claim is going to come up later.

Aroma

Smells lovely. That was my first reaction and I’ll stand behind it. A rich garlic and soy aroma hits you about a foot away, and when you get close, there’s a hint of chili underneath — not heat, just the dried pepper presence. It’s warm and savory. The garlic is doing most of the talking in the nose, backed up by what I think is the fried shallot and onion coming through as a single roasted-allium note.

Compared to the FBJ Original, the Original’s oil had a more complex, fragrant quality on open — you got Sichuan peppercorn in the aroma, a little more depth. This one is simpler in the nose. Garlic-forward, clean, inviting. Not as layered, but it smells like something you want to eat.

Appearance and Settlement

This is where it gets interesting.

The settlement ratio on this jar is a drastic improvement over the Original. I’m not using that word lightly. The Original has a significant oil layer — you can see it through the jar before you even open it. The Xtra Spicy and Xtra Crunchy have the same issue to varying degrees. It’s been the consistent knock on the entire Fly By Jing lineup.

The Mild? Solids go almost all the way to the top. There’s a thin film of oil on the surface, but we’re talking maybe 5–10% oil layer at most. This is Excellent-tier settlement. If you looked at this jar without a label, you’d guess it came from a brand that prioritizes bits over oil.

If Fly By Jing had put this ratio in their Original jar, the Original would be a different product. I rated the Original AVERAGE, and the oil-to-solids ratio was the biggest reason. This Mild jar quietly solves the single biggest complaint about the brand.

The fork-sit test confirms it. Before stirring, the fork sits on top of the settled solids. Doesn’t sink. That’s dense. Lots of visible chunks of different sizes — garlic pieces, shallot, deeper red chili flakes, and those soy protein bits adding mass throughout. The color palette is golden-brown with specks of red, not the deep crimson of the Original.

Texture and Crunch

Crunchy to the fork. I could hear it when I pulled through the jar, which is always a good sign. There’s crunch plus a bit of chew — that’s the textured soy protein earning its spot on the ingredient list. It gives the bits a sustained presence in your mouth rather than the quick shatter-and-dissolve you get from a pure fried-garlic crispy bit.

The chunks are big and flaky. This isn’t a uniform, fine-ground product — there’s real variation in bit size, and the larger pieces have structure. They hold up. The fork-pull post-stir brings up a dense, chunky load with minimal oil drip. Compare that to the Original, where the fork comes out glossy and dripping.

Is it the crunchiest chili crisp I’ve tested? No. There’s a chew component from the TVP that keeps it from being pure crunch. But the chew isn’t a negative here — it adds a meatiness to the texture, a sense that you’re eating something with substance. You can just keep chewing and flavor keeps coming. That’s the TVP doing its work.

Flavor Complexity

Salt hits first. Immediately. Then a deep, rich umami rolls in behind it — savory, round, the kind of baseline flavor that makes you want another bite before you’ve finished analyzing the first one. That umami-into-salt arrival is the textured soy protein and yeast extract working together. It’s effective.

After the initial salt-umami wave, sweetness shows up to balance things out. Not dessert-sweet — just enough to keep the salt from being aggressive. The shallot comes through next, and then onion. Two types of allium arriving at different times, which creates a sense of development even in a jar that isn’t doing anything complicated with chili heat.

The two forms of garlic — the background garlic and the dried flakes — create a similar layering effect. You taste garlic throughout, but it shifts from a deep, cooked garlic flavor to the crunchier, more assertive dried flake as you chew. That’s thoughtful formulation.

The oil, though, is where this jar gives up some ground. The rapeseed-soybean blend is clean and neutral — it doesn’t get in the way, but it doesn’t contribute much either. The Original’s oil, for all the criticism about its quantity, actually had flavor. You could taste Sichuan peppercorn and mushroom in it. This Mild oil is a carrier, not a contributor. It does its job as a vehicle and nothing more.

Is this a whole-jar product? Almost. The bits are clearly the star, and the oil supports them without competing. But because the oil isn’t doing independent flavor work, I’d call this a 90% whole-jar concept — the bits carry the entire experience, and the oil is along for the ride. In the Original, the oil at least tried to pull its weight. Here, the tradeoff is clear: they fixed the ratio by making the oil less of a feature.

Heat

The label says “no heat.” The marketing copy doubles down: “no heat, but crispy, crunchy garlic bits.” Here’s the thing — that’s not quite accurate.

There is heat in this jar. It’s mild, it’s brief, and it’s easy to miss if you’re not paying attention, but it’s there. A quick wave of warmth that arrives mid-palate and exits within a few seconds. No lingering. No building burn or Sichuan tingle. Just a flash of warmth and then it’s gone.

Dried chili pepper is the sixth ingredient. It’s doing something. This is not a zero-heat product the way Momofuku’s Mild Garlic Chili Crunch is zero-heat. Momofuku Garlic leaves chili out entirely — it’s a garlic crisp, full stop. Fly By Jing’s Mild still has dried chili in the jar, and you can taste a whisper of it.

Does this matter? For most people, no. The heat is genuinely negligible. But if you’re buying this for someone who truly cannot handle any heat — a small child, someone with a medical sensitivity — the label’s “no heat” claim overpromises slightly. It’s mild. It’s not absent.

Use Cases and Versatility

The mild heat profile opens this jar up to basically everything. Noodles are the obvious first call — lo mein, ramen, rice noodles, any stir-fry situation where you want crunch and flavor without burn. The garlic-forward profile and the allium depth make it a natural fit for anything where garlic would already be welcome.

Beyond noodles: eggs (scrambled, fried, or on top of a frittata), plain rice, avocado toast, grilled chicken, roasted vegetables, and — because there’s no heat barrier — sandwiches and pizza. This is a jar you can put in front of someone who says “I don’t like spicy food” and watch them go back for a second spoonful.

The crunch holds up on warm food, which matters. A lot of chili crisps with delicate fried bits dissolve into mush the moment they hit something hot. The TVP and the garlic flakes in this jar have enough structure to survive contact with a bowl of noodles.

At $1.51 per ounce in a 6-ounce jar, it’s mid-range pricing for a specialty chili crisp. Not cheap, not outrageous. The jar is the standard Fly By Jing size and shape — wide mouth, easy spoon access, same lid as the rest of the lineup.

The Mixing Angle

This is a standalone jar. It doesn’t need to be mixed into anything else to reach its potential — the bit density is high enough and the flavor is complete enough that it works on its own terms. That said, if you wanted to add crunch and garlic depth to a jar that’s running low on solids, the Mild would be a good candidate. Pour the last third of this into a half-empty jar of Lao Gan Ma and you’d get the crunch LGM is missing without changing the heat profile. But it doesn’t need that — it stands on its own.

How It Compares

The Lao Gan Ma comparison is interesting here because the products are solving different problems. LGM gives you fermented depth, heat, and a dense bit layer — but the oil is doing minimal flavor work. The FBJ Mild gives you garlic-forward crunch with almost no heat and an even thinner oil presence. LGM is the richer overall product; FBJ Mild is the more texturally satisfying one.

Within the Fly By Jing lineup, this is the best settlement ratio I’ve seen from the brand. The Original (AVERAGE) has noticeably more oil. The Xtra Spicy (GOOD) is better than the Original but still oil-heavy by comparison. The Xtra Crunchy (AVERAGE) was supposed to solve the texture problem and didn’t fully get there. The Mild does what the Xtra Crunchy was trying to do — deliver a high-density, crunchy experience — but it does it by rethinking the formula, not just adding more fried bits to the same oil-heavy base.

If Fly By Jing put the Mild’s ratio into the Original’s formula — the Sichuan peppercorn oil, the more complex flavor layering, with this much solid content — that Original jar would probably be EXCELLENT. The Mild proves the brand can do it. The question is whether they will.

Final Verdict

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