South Africa is bursting with food cultures, flavours and experiences like nowhere else in the world. Eleven official languages. Countless culinary traditions. A food identity that borrows from everywhere and belongs entirely to itself. Walk through any market, any neighbourhood kitchen, any braai on a Saturday afternoon — the flavours are bold, layered and unapologetically alive.
That’s where the inspiration started for the latest addition to the Wilson’s Foods range — our Infused Oils. The rainbow range, as we call it in the office. We wanted to develop oils that give you more than well-rounded flavour. Beautiful smelling ingredients that make your mouth water before the pan is even hot. Oils that push the envelope a little. Oils that create an experience — because that’s what South African food has always done.
The Garlic & Chilli Infused Oil is where we’d suggest you start.
Three to Four Years in the Making
Developing an infused oil sounds straightforward. It isn’t. Getting the balance right — enough garlic to be present without being aggressive, enough chilli to build heat without dominating, a base oil that carries both without losing its own character — took iteration after iteration over years. Combinations that were too sharp. Batches that were too flat. Versions that worked on paper and fell apart in a hot pan. There were days in the development kitchen that tested everyone’s patience — and everyone’s sinuses.
The dish we kept coming back to during development was a simple prawn linguine. Prawns cooked in the oil, pasta tossed through the pan juices, lemon and parsley at the end. Twenty minutes. Nothing clever. We used it as a test because there’s nowhere to hide in a recipe that simple — the oil is the sauce, the flavour, the whole point. Batch after batch went into that pan. Most of them were close. Some of them were interesting. One of them made the pasta sing.
That’s the oil in the bottle.
Food Is an Experience Before It’s a Taste
Somewhere along the way, the conversation shifted. We stopped talking about flavour profiles and started talking about the experience of picking up the bottle. Because that’s where cooking actually starts — before the pan is hot, before anything has been chopped. It starts with what you reach for and why.
That’s why you can see what’s inside. Real garlic pieces. Real chilli flakes. Visible through the glass, suspended in the oil, exactly as they should be. Hold the bottle to the light and you know immediately what it’s going to do to your food. There’s a confidence that comes with that — and if we’re being straight with you, a little bit of excitement too. The kind you get when you open a really good bottle of wine and the smell alone tells you tonight is going to be a good dinner.
The same philosophy runs through every bottle in the infused range. Mustard seeds in the Mustard Infused Oil. Jalapeño flakes in the Jalapeño Infused Oil.
What Happens When You Start Cooking With It
The base is our canola-olive oil blend, chosen because it handles heat well. Most flavoured oils are fragile — they only work as a finishing drizzle, cold, over something already cooked. This one goes into a hot pan comfortably, which changes everything about how you can use it. It’s the culinary equivalent of someone who’s good at both the party and the morning after.
Use it to start a shakshuka — the tomatoes cook down in oil that already has garlic depth and chilli warmth built in, so the sauce arrives somewhere interesting before you’ve added a single spice. Use it to roast potatoes — parboil, rough up the edges, toss in the oil with rosemary and sea salt, into a hot oven. The garlic caramelises into each edge and the chilli sits quietly in the background. These are the potatoes that disappear first. Every time. Without exception.
Use it as a marinade base for chicken thighs or lamb chops — an hour in the oil with lemon and fresh herbs, and the flavour goes into the meat rather than sitting on the surface. What comes off the braai tastes seasoned from the inside out. People will ask what you did differently. You can tell them or keep it to yourself. We recommend the latter — mystique is underrated.
Pour it into a shallow bowl with a splash of Wilson’s Foods Balsamic Vinegar and tear your best bread into it. That’s lunch. Drizzle it over a margherita pizza straight from the oven before you’ve cut it. Scramble your eggs in it on a Monday morning and start the week like you mean it.
The thing about a genuinely good infused oil is that it finds its way into everything. You put it on the counter and a few weeks later you realise it’s been in almost every savoury meal you’ve cooked. That was always the intention — an oil that earns a permanent spot in the kitchen rather than appearing occasionally for special occasions and then quietly gathering dust next to the star anise you bought in 2019.
Start Here
If you’ve just opened your first bottle and you want to know where to begin, start with the prawn linguine. The one that told us the oil was finally right. Prawns, pasta, the oil, lemon, parsley. Twenty minutes. It’s as good as it sounds — and it’ll tell you everything you need to know about what this oil can do. After that, you’re on your own. In the best possible way.
Full recipe: Garlic & Chilli Prawn Linguine — serves 4, on the table in 20 minutes.