Here's How Long You Should Infuse Honey For The Best Flavor

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Honey is an obvious choice in sweet dishes, but a little touch of mild honey can go beautifully with the savory side as well. You can use it on your crispy buttermilk chicken and waffles, even try it on your pork chops with some added garlic. And you can kick it up with some infusions — some simple red pepper flakes mixed in, or try a simple hot honey recipe with fresh chiles and Champagne vinegar for a little extra tang. If you're looking for some store-bought infused honey, Chowhound's ranking of the best (and worst) hot honey brands may offer some help.

But to expand the palate, maybe an expert is in order, and we reached out to one such expert for a Chowhound exclusive on how to go about it. Melissa King is a "Top Chef All-Stars" champion and has a new cookbook, "Cook Like a King: Recipes from My California Chinese Kitchen." She gave us some advice on what to use in your infused honey and how long you should let it rest. She says, "You'll want to be careful with fresh ingredients because after a few days, it can start to ferment the honey and turn into more of a tincture." Fermented honey can still last up to a year in the fridge, so there's plenty of time to use it, but it will have a funkier taste than a simple hot honey. But King points out that fermented honey can still be quite delicious, so you may want to test it day-to-day, depending on your flavor preferences.

"In my cookbook," Melissa King says, "I infuse Sichuan chilies into my honey to make King Honey." In addition to the chiles, King uses ginger, citrus zests, black pepper, garlic, and vanilla bean. As mentioned, if you're using fresh (not dried) ingredients, like the garlic and ginger, the honey will ferment because the thick honey is extracting liquids from the fresh ingredients and naturally occurring yeasts will start the fermentation process. But there's nothing to be concerned with, if you don't mind it a little funky tasting.

In addition to the straight infused honey, King points us to other honeyed options: "My cookbook also includes soy honey-cured egg yolks, and they're amazing spread on toast." You can simply marinate egg yolks in a soy sauce and honey mix and leave them to marinate in the fridge. They'll come out super unctuous and full of flavor. You can leave them in the marinade for as little as eight hours or so, but 24 is probably recommended. And, if you need some extra flavor, think about adding some of King's special King Honey to the mix.