Spice Bag Recipe

Few meals have captured my attention like Dublin’s iconic spice bag. When I arrived in the Irish capital on vacation in 2023, a chef friend insisted that I seek one out after enjoying a few pints. Nothing, she said, would soak up the Guinness quite as well as this spicy, salty, tingly culinary mashup—and she was right. A relatively new entrant into Ireland’s culinary canon, the spice bag is difficult to describe: It’s fried chicken and potatoes in a spicy Sichuan sauce, but is so much more than the sum of its parts. 

The origins of the spice bag are murky. According to The Irish Times, it was first made at a Dublin takeout spot (or takeaway, in Irish and English parlance) called the Sunflower, where employees devised the dish for their staff meal: the kind of crunchy, fried fare you might crave after a long day at work. It quickly spread across the city, popping up on takeaway restaurant menus. Now, locals and tourists alike rave about the dish, which has gone viral on TikTok and Instagram. The most popular iteration can be found at Xi’an Street Food, a Dublin Sichuan restaurant also known for its spicy biang biang noodles. 

I was half-drunk on the street at midnight in Dublin when I encountered my very first spice bag—crunchy fried chicken and thick, fluffy chips tossed in a magically tingly blend of spices, plus a side of curry sauce in which to slather both—and it was a revelation. Strips of fried onion and sweet pepper added pops of brightness, necessary when you’re consuming this kind of fried-on-fried fare. When I returned to Dublin in 2025, Xi’an’s spice bag was the first thing on my mind, and I’m not ashamed to admit that I ate one two nights in a row in the comfort of my hotel room in the Temple Bar neighborhood. 

When I got back to the States, I was determined to recreate the spice bag in my own kitchen. Though some restaurants, including Bar Snack in New York City, serve spice bags, the dish hasn’t caught on widely in American eateries yet, so I can’t just head to a nearby Irish pub and expect it to be on the menu.

Ever a meticulous researcher, I browsed TikTok, YouTube, and Reddit forums for recipe inspiration—but I wasn’t particularly thrilled with what I found. Some suggested using paprika and basic red pepper flakes as the spice base, which just didn’t square with the nose-dripping heat I encountered at Dublin’s Xi’an Street Food. Armed with a few poorly lit photographs of the spice bags I’d ordered in Ireland and fond memories of their flavor, I set out to recreate the dish in the comfort of my own home.

My first stop was my local branch of the Asian grocery store 99 Ranch Market, where I stocked up on whole Sichuan peppercorns, spicy red chili flakes, and Chinese five-spice. I also snagged white pepper and a jar of chili crisp, knowing that the spice bags I had in Dublin were coated in a red oil that tasted much like it. From there, I spent days sneezing after filling my kitchen with the fragrant aroma of freshly ground Sichuan peppercorns, and figuring out exactly how much sugar was required to balance all that tingly heat.

The resulting recipe, in my opinion, is the closest you can get to a Dublin spice bag in your home kitchen. It is also endlessly adaptable—if you don’t feel like frying your own chicken, frozen chicken nuggets are perfectly suitable. The same goes for the British-style chips. If you’re not in the mood to cut, blanch, and fry your own potatoes, a bag of frozen steak fries from your supermarket will get you about 99% of the way there. The only non-negotiables are the spice blendand the chili oil, plus the quick stir-fry at the end to bring all those flavors together.

Getting the Spice Blend Right

The first and perhaps most important step is getting the spice blend together. It should be salty, savory, tingly, and spicy, with a hint of sweetness. I coarsely grind the peppercorns, then mix them with the garlic powder, onion powder, white pepper, sugar, and MSG. I also add a little powdered chicken bouillon, such as Knorr, to boost the savory flavor. After you’ve made the blend, I highly recommend tasting and adjusting to your preferred level of spice. I like my food on the spicier side, but you can absolutely use fewer chili flakes if you find the heat too aggressive.

Prepping the Curry Sauce

The first and perhaps most important step is getting the spice blend together. It should be salty, savory, tingly, and spicy, with a hint of sweetness. I coarsely grind the peppercorns, then mix them with the garlic powder, onion powder, white pepper, sugar, and MSG. I also add a little powdered chicken bouillon, such as Knorr, to boost the savory flavor. After you’ve made the blend, I highly recommend tasting and adjusting to your preferred level of spice. I like my food on the spicier side, but you can absolutely use fewer chili flakes if you find the heat too aggressive.

Nailing the Chicken (Yes, Store-Bought Nuggets Are Fine)

I will admit that I prefer the easy version of this recipe, made with frozen nuggets and fries. There is something special about taking a couple of bags of food out of the freezer and transforming them into something astronomically better. I typically prepare the nuggets in the air fryer; because the appliance is essentially a mini convection oven, it does a great job of coaxing out a crunchy texture almost as effectively as hot oil. 

If I feel like going all-out, I make former Serious Eats editor Kenji’s recipe for crisp, soy-marinated Japanese-style karaage. Karaage, which is coated in a mixture of flour and cornstarch, is a great choice because its craggy exterior is perfect for grabbing all those bits of spice and chili oil. 

Regardless of whether you go the store-bought or homemade route, you can ensure the chicken stays crunchy by setting the oven to 300°F (150°C) and placing the fried chicken inside while you finish preparing your chips.

Making the Chips

While the chicken is frying, I bring a second pot of water to a boil to start making senior editor Genevieve’s British-style chips, skipping the optional freezer step for time’s sake. It’s important to fry the chicken first, because it’s sturdy enough to stay crunchy while you make the potatoes.  If you don’t feel like making chips from scratch, going the store-bought route is, once again, perfectly fine. You could use the air fryer to cook your chips, but in my testing, I found that the appliance just didn’t do as good a job with the fries—it often dried them out, and I could never get them quite as crispy as I like. So I prefer to deep-fry the fries, even if I am starting with store-bought.

Putting It All Together

Once both the nuggets and the chips are out of the oil (or the air fryer), I sprinkle them liberally with the spice blend and toss them lightly to ensure they’re evenly coated. Doing this when they’re fresh out of the oil helps those spices stick. If you forget this step, though, it’s OK—you can always add more of the spice bag seasoning when you’re stir-frying. One thing that’s great about the spice blend is that the recipe makes a ton, which means you’ll have enough for many future spice bags. 

Once the chicken and chips have been tossed in the spice blend, the most fun part of the process begins: stir-frying everything together. You’ll want to haul that massive wok out of your cabinet, because you’re going to need plenty of room to maneuver all those ingredients around. After adding a few tablespoons of oil to your wok and letting it get ripping hot, you’ll toss in the veggies and fry them for a few minutes before tossing in the chicken and fries. Then it’s just a matter of adding more spices and the chili crisp and quickly tossing everything together until it’s evenly coated. 

Now that everything’s done in the wok, it’s time to plate your spice bag. You could, of course, special-order foil-lined bags from Amazon to replicate the true Dublin experience, or you could just pile the whole thing onto plates and douse your bounty in that curry sauce. Either way, you’re going to have a good time.