Adding some extra spice to your food is always a good idea (or at least we think so). A great way to ensure you have the exact hot sauce flavor and heat according to your taste buds is to make your own sauce at home. Don’t know where to start? We can help you learn how to make your own hot sauce.

Take a look at our ingredients list and our simple five-step unfermented hot sauce recipe to get you started.

3 Reasons Why you Should Make Hot Sauce at Home

Here are three great reasons why you should make hot sauce at home. 

1. You Can Incorporate Whatever Ingredients You Like

Hot sauce comes in all different flavors, which means you can use a variety of ingredients. For example, fruit, superhot chili peppers, and other spices. This way, you can emphasize the flavors you like in your sauce.

Making your own hot sauce guarantees it will be unique.

2. Making Hot Sauce is Fun and Easy

Don’t let the steps of making hot sauce dissuade you from trying it. It is a quick process that only takes about 15 minutes to prep, blend, and cook and 5-7 days for fermentation (if you choose to go through the fermentation process). 

3. It’s a Great Way to Preserve Your Chili Pepper Harvest

If you have your own garden, you may have an abundance of chili peppers that you don’t know what to do with. Making hot sauce is a great way to make use of your seasonal harvest.

Typical Hot Sauce Ingredients

Before we get into the steps that describe how you’ll go about making your hot sauce. Here is an ingredient list for you to refer to when you’re gathering your groceries. You may also add fruits such as mango, passionfruit, or any other fruit you prefer. 

1. Dried peppers or fresh peppers, whichever you prefer
2. Tomato 
3. Onion
4. Garlic
5. Cilantro
6. Salt
7. Cayenne, chile, ancho, and curry powders

How to Make Hot Sauce

Remember to wear gloves when handling hot peppers and chilis. Always wash your hands after you touch, cut, and handle hot peppers.

Once you’ve got that down, you’re ready to make the sauce with these easy steps.

Step 1

Take the stems off of your chili peppers. They tend to taste bitter and will subtract from the flavor of your sauce. 

Step 2

Start adding your chiles to the blender. Mix your peppers up depending on the level of heat you prefer.

Step 3 

Begin combining all of your other ingredients one by one such as canned or fresh tomato, spices, and a cup of water.

Step 4

Blend it all together and watch your chili pepper mixture turn into something resembling sauce. If it doesn’t resemble sauce, you may try adding more water to blend the chiles and tomatoes more smoothly. 

Step 5

Now it’s time to heat it up. Pour the sauce mixture into a blender from a pot. Let it sit on medium heat for about 20 minutes. Stir the mixture occasionally. Bottle your sauce using a funnel into a glass jar or other container when it cools down.

Remember, unfermented hot sauce only lasts a few days in your fridge, but nothing beats the deliciously fresh flavor. You may need to test a few recipes before you get the right taste. Make sure to share some with your friends and family. 

Try Chef Nigel’s one-of-a-kind Mango Habanero Sauce or the Passion Fruit Habanero Sauce in the meantime while you’re learning how to make hot sauce to give a sweet kick to all of the recipes you want to spice up.

Don’t forget to share your hot sauce results with us in the comments!