Momofuku Chili Crunch New Batch

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Why a Re-Review

I reviewed the original Momofuku Chili Crunch and walked away thinking it was fine — solid product, interesting nose, but the coconut sugar ran the show and everything else sat in the backseat. Then Momofuku shipped a new batch. Yellow lid. Same label, same ingredient order. I bought another jar because I wanted to know if what I tasted was the product or the batch.

This is a full re-test of the Momofuku Chili Crunch new batch — same protocol, same criteria, different jar. If you are new to chili crisp and want to understand the category before diving into a specific product, start there.

Quick Facts

Serving size is one teaspoon. I still don’t love that. Nobody uses one teaspoon of chili crunch — it’s a marketing fiction that keeps the sodium number looking polite. Realistic use is a tablespoon or more, especially if you are spooning this onto fried chicken like I have been for the past month.

Ingredient Quality

Same list as before, same order: grapeseed oil, puya chili, coconut sugar, sesame seed, onion, garlic, mushroom powder, chile de arbol, japones chili, salt, red pepper, shallot, yeast extract, seaweed. Fourteen ingredients. I covered this in detail in the original review — the short version is that the list reads well on paper. Three chili types, mushroom powder, seaweed at the tail. On paper, this should be complex.

Coconut sugar sitting at number three is still the headline. That position means it’s doing real flavor work — not background sweetness, but lead-vocal sweetness. Grapeseed oil up top keeps the base clean and relatively neutral, which is why you taste the sugar so clearly. If you want to understand how reading a chili crisp label predicts what you will taste, this jar is the case study: third ingredient dominates.

Aroma

Honey butter. Same as last time. Open the jar and it hits you from a foot away — not unpleasant, just unmistakably sweet and rich in a way you do not expect from a jar of chili crunch. A very distinct honey butter character, and it’s consistent across both batches.

The difference this time: I can detect a little chili in the nose alongside it. The previous batch was 100% honey butter on the open. This one is maybe 90/10 — honey butter with a whisper of chili pepper peeking through. After stirring, same story. Nothing new reveals itself. The nose is still the honey butter show, but the supporting cast is slightly more present.

Appearance and Settlement

The crunchy bits and sediment take up roughly 70% of the jar. Oil floating on top, red-amber color, and a good bit of headroom at the top — Momofuku does not fill to the brim. Looking through the glass, I can see a fine layer of sediment at the very top of the solid mass, then multiple distinct layers underneath. That layered sediment is consistent with every Momofuku jar I have opened — it is a brand signature at this point.

Only a few things floating in the oil layer, but the sediment is clearly visible beneath. This isn’t an oil-heavy jar. The grapeseed oil layer is the minority partner here, which is exactly what you want.

Texture and Crunch

Stirred up, this jar gets thick. Not the typical oil-draining-away-from-bits separation — it all kind of comes together. A very loose paste, almost syrupy. Very runny, very chunky syrup is the best I can describe it. The consistency is homogeneous in a way most chili crisps aren’t.

The crunch itself is more sesame-forward than I remember from the previous batch. First thing my teeth hit is seed crunch — sesame seeds popping and grinding. Then the larger bits of garlic and chili flake come through. It’s crunchy in an immediate, front-of-mouth way. The crispy bits here are not large individual pieces you have to work through — they are distributed evenly through that syrupy matrix.

Flavor Complexity

Here is where the new batch earns its keep. The previous jar was a sugar bomb — sweetness arrived first, stayed longest, and crowded everything else out. This batch still leads sweet, but it’s not the avalanche it was. Crunch arrives immediately. Then a wave of sesame seed flavor, then the sweetness fills in behind it rather than bulldozing ahead of it.

Mid-palate, I am picking up onion, chili, garlic — all detectable as individual players. The seaweed umami is there too, doing its quiet work at the back. This is what the ingredient list always promised: complexity. The previous batch could not deliver it because the coconut sugar was doing all the talking. This batch lets the rest of the room speak.

The oil is still a whole-jar situation — it doesn’t separate into distinct oil-and-bits flavors. Everything merges into that syrupy consistency. It’s a unified product. I still think of this as a whole jar concept rather than a split-jar situation, which works in its favor.

That said — honey butter still dominates the overall impression. The sweetness stepped back, not away. If you’re looking for a savory-first chili crisp, this isn’t it. If you compared this head-to-head with Momofuku Black Truffle, the truffle version is doing more interesting things. But within the original line, this batch is an improvement.

Heat

The label claims 3 out of 5 chilies and that is accurate. Heat builds — it doesn’t announce itself. You get the crunch first, the sesame first, and then the spice creeps in on your tongue. It’s a slow ramp that spreads across the tongue surface, then climbs up to the roof of your mouth.

Three chili types are doing the work here: puya, chile de arbol, and japones. The heat lingers and builds rather than flashing and fading. I can still feel it a few minutes after my last bite, which is a good sign — the chili flavor sticks around with the burn, not just raw heat.

For a general audience, this is medium and manageable. You won’t break a real sweat unless you are going tablespoon-deep, which — given how I use this jar — I often am.

Use Cases

I have had this jar in the fridge for about a month now. That’s enough time to learn what you actually reach for it on — not what sounds good in theory, but what your hand gravitates toward at dinner.

The answer: fried food. Fried chicken. Chick-fil-A sandwiches. Anything breaded, anything golden. The honey butter nose creates a mental association with southern home cooking — biscuit with some bacon, something buttery and rich. When I know I want this jar for a specific food, it goes well. And I don’t disagree with that craving.

Less ideal on: delicate noodles, steamed dumplings, anything where the sweetness would compete rather than complement. This isn’t a neutral condiment. It has a personality, and that personality is sweet heat on comfort food.

The Mixing Angle

This is a standalone jar. Not because it is perfect — but because the honey butter character is so specific that mixing it into another chili crisp would just make that jar sweeter. It doesn’t blend well. Use it for what it is: a sweet-heat accent for fried food and biscuits. If you want more complexity, reach for the Black Truffle instead.

Benchmark Comparison

Lao Gan Ma and Momofuku are not playing the same game. LGM is savory-forward with a neutral oil that stays out of the way — you taste chili and fermented bean and crisp. Momofuku leads with sweetness from the coconut sugar, has a grapeseed oil base that contributes that honey-butter nose, and a syrupy paste consistency rather than distinct oil-and-bits separation. LGM is a condiment workhorse. Momofuku is a flavor accent — it does one thing (sweet heat on fried food) and does it well.

Versatility and Packaging

The 5.5 oz jar at $11.99 puts this at $2.18 per ounce — expensive for the category. A jar of Lao Gan Ma is less than half that per ounce. You are paying a premium for the ingredient list and the brand, and whether that is worth it depends on how often you reach for it.

I reach for it 2-3 times a week, exclusively on fried food. That’s a narrower use case than most jars in my rotation. The jar itself is fine — wide mouth, easy spoon access. The new yellow lid with the Momofuku logo is a cosmetic upgrade. Still refrigerate after opening.

Final Verdict

Tier: GOOD.

The new batch is better. The sweetness pulled back enough to let the sesame, chili, and umami do real work for the first time. It’s still a honey-butter-dominant product — that hasn’t changed and probably won’t. But this version earns its GOOD tier more convincingly than the last one did. If you like sweet heat on fried food, this jar knows exactly what it is. If you’re looking for savory depth or all-purpose versatility, look elsewhere in the Momofuku lineup.

Buy Momofuku Chili Crunch on Amazon.