Jalapeño Hollandaise

Name: Jalapeño Hollandaise
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 10 min
Total time: 25 min
Yield: 4 serves
Ingredients: 1–2 Fresh Jalapeños; 150 g Unsalted Butter; 3 Egg Yolks; 1 tbsp Lemon Juice; 1 tsp White Vinegar; 1 tsp Dijon Mustard; ¼ tsp Fine Salt; Hot Water; Smoked Paprika

That would be an absolute weapon of a breakfast.

John DrummondWritten 13 October 2026

Two English muffin halves with crispy bacon and poached eggs under a pale yellow hollandaise flecked with green jalapeño, chives and a dusting of paprika

Prep15min

Cook10min

All up25min

Serves4

LevelEasy

Mise en place

What you need

Tick each one off as it goes in.

1–2Fresh Jalapeños1 for mild, 2 for John-likes-jalapeños
150 gUnsalted Butter
3Egg Yolksout of the fridge 20 minutes before
1 tbspLemon Juice
1 tspWhite Vinegar
1 tspDijon Mustardit holds the sauce together
¼ tspFine Salt
—Hot Watera splash, only if needed
—Smoked Paprikaa tiny sprinkle on the plate, not in the sauce

Makes 4 serves

Jalapeño hollandaise sounds bloody excellent. Rich buttery sauce, sharp lemon, egg yolk creaminess, then jalapeño heat cutting through it. It would be awesome on eggs, smashed avo, bacon, hash browns, steak, asparagus, or even breakfast tacos.

Best breakfast use: toasted English muffin or sourdough, crispy bacon or chorizo, poached or fried eggs, jalapeño hollandaise over the top, fresh coriander or chives, and a tiny sprinkle of smoked paprika. That would be an absolute weapon of a breakfast.

Heat control: for a mild version, use 1 jalapeño with the seeds and ribs removed. For proper “John likes jalapeños” mode, use 2 jalapeños, leave some seeds in, and add a few pickled jalapeño slices, patted dry, before blending.

Cheat upgrade: add 1 teaspoon of pickled jalapeño brine at the end. It gives it a tangy, addictive bite that works beautifully with eggs. Slices or brine, though, not both — too much liquid and the sauce lets go.

The method

Six moves.

Char the Jalapeños
Place the jalapeños over a gas flame, under the grill, or in a dry pan, turning them, until the skin is blistered and blackened most of the way round — 5–8 minutes. This gives the sauce a smoky, roasted flavour.
Peel and Prep
Drop them in a bowl, cover it and leave them 10 minutes: the steam loosens the skin, and they need to be cool before they go anywhere near the yolks. Scrape off most of the blackened skin — don’t rinse them, that washes the flavour away. Remove the seeds and the white ribs if you want it milder. Leave some in if you want the full jalapeño experience. Pat them dry.
Melt the Butter
Melt the butter and keep going until it is foaming and properly hot — about 90°C — but not browned. The heat in the butter is what cooks the yolks and thickens the sauce; butter that is only just melted gives you a thin one.
Blend the Base
Use a stick blender and a tall, narrow cup — three yolks won’t reach the blades of a jug blender. Add the egg yolks, lemon juice, vinegar, salt, Dijon and jalapeños. Blend for 10–15 seconds.
Stream in the Butter
With the blender running, slowly drizzle in the hot butter — the first third very slowly, over about 30 seconds, then the rest in a thin stream. The sauce should thicken into a silky hollandaise.
Adjust
Taste it. Add more lemon for brightness, more salt if it tastes flat, or hot water a teaspoon at a time if it’s too thick. Serve it straight away. It will hold for half an hour with the cup sitting in warm water, but don’t reheat it and don’t keep it.

Next level

Brown the butter

Optional · about 10 min more

Start with 180 g of butter instead of 150 g. Cook it over medium heat, swirling the pan, for 5–7 minutes, until the milk solids on the bottom are deep golden and it smells nutty. Strain it through a fine sieve, let it stop sizzling — about a minute — and use it hot in place of the melted butter.

Then stir 1 tbsp of finely diced, well-drained pickled jalapeño through the finished sauce. Nutty depth under the heat, and little sharp bursts of pickle.

Keep wandering