Too Much Red Pepper Flakes: How to Fix a Dish That’s Too Spicy

One bite is fine, the next sets your mouth on fire? That’s too many red pepper flakes: the heat lands in pockets wherever a flake does. Unlike a powder, flakes can sometimes be picked or strained out, so get out what you can, then dilute or balance the rest with dairy or a little sugar. Skip the beer, and don’t bother simmering the dish longer or fishing out the seeds.

Quick answer

Why flakes overpower a dish

Flakes are milder than ground cayenne. McCormick Science Institute says cayenne powder is typically hotter than red pepper flakes,¹ and Dave DeWitt’s heat scale, which he calls approximate, puts crushed red pepper at 15,000 to 30,000 Scoville heat units.² That’s still hot, and the heat isn’t spread evenly. PepperScale advises judging flakes by the mouthful, not by the pot.³ One spoonful of a dish can be fine and the next too much.

Get the flakes out while you still can

On the surface. PepperScale points out that flakes tend to sit on top of food, so they’re easy to see and clean off.⁴ Scrape or brush them off a roast, chicken, pizza or tray of vegetables. PepperScale also suggests rinsing them away under running water.⁴ That’s fine for cooked vegetables or bread, but don’t do it with raw meat or poultry. The USDA doesn’t recommend washing raw poultry, beef, pork, lamb or veal before cooking, because it raises the risk of cross-contamination.⁵

In a liquid. For a soup or sauce, PepperScale suggests a fine strainer to catch the seeds and flakes.⁴ Straining takes out other small bits too, so you may need to add back herbs or aromatics.

Know the limit. Once the flakes have been cooking in the dish a while, PepperScale notes, taking them out won’t make it less hot.⁴ In that case, go straight to dilution.

Too hot all through: dilute

PepperScale recommends diluting the dish,⁴ and it’s the only fix that lowers the amount of capsaicin in each bite. Add more of every ingredient except the flakes: more crushed tomatoes and pasta to an arrabbiata, more broth and vegetables to a soup, more beans to a chili. If the pot’s full, use the second-batch method Tasting Table gives for too much garlic: make a batch without the overdosed ingredient and combine the two.⁶ Taste and adjust the other seasonings afterward.

Then balance: dairy, sweetness, acid

Dairy. PepperScale says any dairy should help, naming milk, yogurt and even ice cream,⁴ and credits casein, a protein in dairy, with binding capsaicin.⁷ The experimental evidence comes from a Penn State study in which 72 people rated the burn of a spicy mix containing capsaicin after one of seven drinks. Every drink reduced the burn. Whole milk, skim milk and cherry Kool-Aid reduced it most, and skim worked as well as whole, which led the researchers to suggest protein matters more than fat.⁸ That tested drinks, not dairy cooked into a dish. At the stove, try a spoonful of ricotta or a handful of grated cheese on spicy pasta, cream in a tomato soup, or yogurt in a curry.

Sweetness. PepperScale says a sweetener can help a dish with too much crushed red pepper.⁴ The Penn State researchers think Kool-Aid worked by overwhelming the burn with sweetness, not by removing it.⁸ Try a pinch of sugar in a tomato sauce or a little honey in a glaze, added gradually and tasted as you go.

Acid. PepperScale notes that many cooks recommend acidic foods.⁴ We found no study of acid against capsaicin’s burn. Lemon, lime or vinegar can balance a dish, but don’t expect them to remove heat.

Bitter or acrid: the flakes burned

Flakes can burn in hot oil. America’s Test Kitchen’s aglio e olio waits until the end to add the pepper flakes, off the heat, specifically to keep them from burning.⁹ If yours burned, move the food to a clean pan and leave the burnt layer behind. Scraping the bottom only adds burnt flavor.¹⁰ If some bitterness hangs on, reach for sugar or salt before acid. In controlled taste tests with pure solutions, both suppressed bitterness, while citric acid was the weakest suppressor.¹¹ That’s a lab result, not a test on food.

When the dish is already on the table

Put dairy next to it. Grated cheese, sour cream, yogurt or a glass of milk all fit the Penn State result.⁸ Carbonated drinks (beer, soda, seltzer) did poorly in that study, and the researchers said an alcoholic beer would likely do worse than the non-alcoholic one they tested, because ethanol amplifies the sensation.⁸

Fixes that don’t hold up

“Cook it longer and the heat fades.” In a 1992 study of spices cooked under household conditions, capsaicin losses were only about 0.3%.¹² That study measured capsaicin, not how hot the food tasted, but it gives you no reason to expect simmering to help.

“Pick out the seeds; that’s where the heat is.” Researchers at The Ohio State University describe capsaicinoids collecting in small structures called blisters on the inner walls of the fruit,¹³ not in the seeds themselves. Pulling out seeds won’t lower the heat much once the flakes are in the dish.

“A potato absorbs it.” PepperScale’s general guide says a bland starch may be able to absorb spiciness,⁷ but we found no test showing a potato pulls capsaicin out of a liquid. The trick comes from oversalted soup, where a Tasting Table writer calls it more of an aid than a final answer.¹⁴ Potato left in the pot still helps as dilution.

Preventing it next time

Start from a named recipe’s amount. America’s Test Kitchen’s aglio e olio uses 1/2 teaspoon of red pepper flakes for a pound of spaghetti, serving 4 to 6,⁹ and its penne arrabbiata uses 1 teaspoon for a pound of penne, serving 6, alongside minced pepperoncini.¹⁵ Those are just those recipes’ amounts, not a standard. Jars vary, so start at or below them.

Add flakes late, or at the table. Stirring them in off the heat keeps them from scorching,⁹ and a shaker at the table lets everyone set their own heat. McCormick Science Institute describes red pepper as a finishing sprinkle for pizza and pasta.¹

Don’t swap them one for one with cayenne. Cayenne powder is typically hotter.¹ See red pepper flakes substitutes and cayenne pepper substitutes.

Related

• Red pepper flakes and red pepper flakes substitutes
• Cayenne pepper
• Too much pepper (black pepper)
• Too much garlic
• Too much salt