Michelin Meals at Home: 5 Gourmet Recipes Using Hot Sauce

A Michelin Star is a prestigious award given to restaurants that provide stunning meals. Five criteria are considered:

How consistent the dishes are time after time and within the menu’s theme/structure
How well the chef’s personality comes through in the dishes
The harmony of the flavors in the dish
The quality of the restaurant’s ingredients
The techniques used and the chef’s mastery of those techniques

When a restaurant receives a Michelin Star rating, it can just as easily be taken away. Once a restaurant is in the Michelin Guide, it stays in until it loses the Star rating. There are three Michelin Star ratings:

1 Star – Dishes are consistently prepared to the same high standard and incorporate quality ingredients.
2 Stars – The criteria from 1 Star are met and add the chef’s personality and talent into the dishes. Plus, the food is “refined and inspired.”
3 Stars – The criteria from 1 Star and 2 Stars are met, but the chefs are the finest around and create dishes with artistic flair. Michelin 3 Stars goes to dishes that judges believe will become classics.

That’s what diners expect from a Michelin Star restaurant or recipe. The quality of the ingredients sets them apart, and that’s where Légal hot sauces come in. They help you turn out Michelin Star meals in your own home. We’ve taken five Michelin Star recipes and added a spicy twist using Légal hot sauces.

Appetizer: La Giardiniera With a Twist

This Italian starter of pickled vegetables is great to have on hand. You want to cut carrots, celery, cauliflower, green onions, and bell peppers into smaller portions. You want enough to fill four pint jars that you’ve boiled to sterilize.

Bring the following to a boil:

4 cups of distilled white vinegar
4 cups of water
4 tablespoons of sugar
4 tablespoons of pickling salt
4 bay leaves
2 tablespoons of Légal hot sauce, you choose the heat level
20 black peppercorns

Fill each jar with some of this brine, leaving about ½ an inch of space. Seal the jars and store them in the refrigerator once they cool.

Soup: Spicy Tomato and Cauliflower Soup

One of the easiest recipes on this list is one you can make in a slow cooker. There’s nothing more satisfying than a hot pot of soup that’s cooked on its own all day.

Open a 14.5-ounce can of whole peeled tomatoes and crush them with a potato masher. Measure out 1 cup and freeze the rest. Put the cup of tomato into the slow cooker.

In a large pan, saute a chopped large sweet onion in 3 tablespoons of olive oil until translucent. Add the onion and move it into the slow cooker. Add:

3 cups of water
All florets from a large head of cauliflower
1 tablespoon mild Légal hot sauce

Cook that on low for eight hours. Use an immersion blender to puree it when the eight hours are up. You want to have very soft cauliflower. Before serving, add ½ cup of crème fraiche and season with salt and pepper.

Entrée: Roasted Chicken With Salsa Verde

We know how busy people are, and that’s why we like meals that don’t need your constant attention. This roasted chicken requires very little prep work.

Marinate a 5-pound roasting chicken in a mixture of:

1 cup olive oil
2 tablespoons minced garlic
2 tablespoons chopped rosemary
2 teaspoons fennel pollen (or double the amount and use ground fennel seed if needed)

Roast the chicken until it reads 165º F on a digital meat thermometer. Serve with homemade salsa verde.

1 cup fresh parsley
1 cup fresh basil
1 clove of garlic
2 tablespoons fresh chives
2 teaspoons Légal hot sauce
Salt and pepper to taste

Blend those ingredients and let them sit overnight to allow the flavors to develop. Serve with the chicken and a side of spicy risotto.

Side Dish: Garlic and Chili Risotto

A roast chicken goes well with a creamy risotto. While a risotto takes more work, it’s worth it.

Start by making homemade garlic oil. To do that, peel and slice 10 garlic cloves and place them in a mason jar. Add 2 tablespoons of medium Légal hot sauce. Set aside.

Microwave 1 ¾ cups of extra virgin olive oil for a minute or two to warm it up. Pour that over the garlic and put the lid on. Let that sit for a day. Use an immersion blender to mince the garlic and distribute it throughout the oil. Freeze in clean ice cube trays until needed.

To make the risotto:

Place 12 ounces of risotto rice into a pan along with 2 teaspoons of olive oil. Saute until the rice is just starting to turn golden. While that happens, fill a measuring pitcher with 2 pints of homemade or storebought vegetable stock and the juice from a medium-sized lemon.

Once the rice is starting to turn color, add the vegetable stock a 1/2 cup at a time. When the rice has absorbed it, add another ½ cup. Once you’ve used all of the stock, add two frozen cubes of the garlic-chili oil cubes. Add salt and pepper to taste. Once they’re fully melted, serve the risotto.

Dessert: Aztec Chocolate Truffles

Many Michelin Star chefs have made decadent chocolate truffles over the years, but we love it when you take dark chocolate and add a spicy kick. Aztec chocolate is a delightful way to do this. The combination of sweet and spicy is delicious.

Melt 20 ounces of dark chocolate in a double boiler. Remove that from heat and stir in 1 ½ cups of heavy cream. Stir well and add 1 teaspoon of cinnamon and 2 teaspoons of hot Légal hot sauce.

Dust your hands with cocoa powder. Using a small cookie scoop, roll each portion into a ball. As the powder comes off your hands, use more to apply another dusting. Roll them in crushed, salted pumpkin seeds.

Refrigerate the truffles when they’re not being eaten.

Discover the Malagueta Pepper

Légal hot sauces are a blend of vinegar, carrots, and malagueta peppers. These chili peppers are found in Portugal, the Caribbean, and Brazil, and it’s in Brazil that the founder of Légal discovered them for the first time.

The pepper is long and narrow and has a Scoville heat rating of 60,000 to 100,000 typically. That makes it as hot as a Tabasco pepper.