Bring The Heat To Your Next Batch Of Hush Puppies With This One-Ingredient Addition

If you love a good deep-fried dish, you probably love hush puppies. But for anyone unfamiliar, hush puppies are deep-fried fritters made from a cornmeal batter. They're quite popular in the South, along with other Southern foods the world needs to try like fried okra and gumbo. As for the taste, hush puppies are both savory and sweet (thanks to sugar being a typical ingredient). But, if you're a fan of spiciness, then you may think that a traditional batch of hush puppies is missing something — and, luckily, there's an easy way to add a kick of heat: jalapeños.

Adding jalapeños to hush puppies couldn't be any easier — all you have to do is dice one up and mix it into the batter. Daily Meal uses this addition in our bacon jalapeño hush puppies, but you can add diced jalapeño to any hush puppy recipe you like as an easy ingredient addition. Our recipe is also rounded out by being served with homemade honey butter for a touch of sweetness — and this recipe omits white sugar, so this is the only source of sweetness.

The jalapeños give the hush puppies a unique and interesting angle that is perfect for switching it up. And, the best part is, the jalapeño addition can work for everyone — those who love intense heat and those who like a slight kick without it being too intense.

If you have a high spice tolerance, you may be worried that these jalapeño hush puppies won't be spicy enough for your liking. In this case, you can always add more to the batch to increase the heat level. It also pays to know how to pick the spiciest jalapeños at the grocery store. Or, instead of adding extra jalapeño, you can add a bit of cayenne pepper (along with the original amount of jalapeño) for that additional heat. Just remember that cayenne is very strong, so you only need a small amount to make a difference in spice level. Additionally, if you really want to keep the focus on the spiciness, you can omit the honey butter, or just use it sparingly.

On the other hand, you may want to add a touch of spice but keep it mild to fit your preferences. In this case, you can lessen the amount of jalapeño used — keep it to ½ or ⅔ of the pepper instead of using the whole thing, for example. You could also add sugar — or extra sugar, if the recipe already calls for it — or even honey to the batter to help balance out the spicy with sweet.