Hot Pepper Sauce

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Steve Kroll

Wine Guy
Joined
Mar 29, 2011
Messages
6,345
Location
Twin Cities, Minnesota
One of the things I look forward to every fall is making homemade hot sauces from whatever chilies I happen to grow or buy at the farm market. In past years, I've used jalapeños, serranos, habaneros, and cayenne. This year I had an abundance of Thai chilies. Below is a very basic recipe will work for pretty much any kind of chilies.

Ingredients


  • 1/2 lb. chili peppers, finely chopped (roughly 2 cups)
  • 1 small onion, thinly sliced
  • 5-6 cloves garlic, finely minced
  • 1 tsp vegetable oil
  • 1 tsp kosher salt
  • 1 tsp sugar
  • 1-1/2 cups water
  • 1 cup white distilled vinegar


Preparation



  1. Heat oil over medium high heat in a 1 quart saucepan. Add chilis, onions, salt, sugar. Sauté for 5 minutes until onions begin to soften. Add garlic and sauté for another 30 seconds.
  2. Add water and cook on medium high heat for about 12-15 minutes, or until most of the liquid has evaporated.
  3. Purée pepper mash along with vinegar in a food processor.
  4. Correct the seasoning and use the back of a spoon to press the mixture through a fine mesh strainer to remove most of the solids.
  5. Carefully pour the sauce into sterilized 5 ounce hot sauce bottles. Refrigerate and allow to age for 2-3 weeks before using (it will mellow a bit).
Yield: 2 10-oz bottles of hot pepper sauce.


These sauces will keep for up to year in the fridge.


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Steve, could you make this without the vinegar? My problem with a lot of commercially made hot sauces is the strong vinegar flavor. That's why I like Sriracha Sauce. I can actually taste the peppers.

Have you ever tried smoking your peppers before using them in your hot sauce recipe? That might add a nice touch.

One more question; have you ever made pepper oils, and if so, can you share the recipe?

Oh, and with all of the questions, you might think that I didn't appreciate the recipe. It looks like a great one.:yum:

I have an assortment of different peppers, each with its own flavor. I just might have to follow your lead and make some home made pepper sauce. I have a large, used up bottle that had contained Tabasco Sauce. I could use that after sterilizing it and its cap.

Seeeeeeya; Chief Longwind of the North
 
I used one of Martin Yan's instructions for chili oil. But I was not fond of the way it turned out. His instructions were to heat vegetable oil until it smokes. In my mouth all I could taste was scorched oil. I tried a few other methods and the one I prefer is to slowly heat some (I usually use about a cup) of flavor-neutral oil. Add chopped or split peppers, up to a dozen or so(depending on type, heat level and size). As soon as the chilis begin to bubble and foam.....take the pan off the heat. let it sit over night, strain, and bottle the oil. I have used dried crushed red peppers for this too and it works well. I find that if you aren't careful, the oil will take on an "overcooked" character that I do not care for. It is the same kind of sensation one gets when going into a small short order diner when they have cooked one too many batches of fries in the same oil.
 
Chief, the vinegar is actually what allows it to keep for as long as it does.

However, I've also used this recipe to make a fermented homemade Sriracha style sauce. While it does call for a quarter cup of vinegar, it doesn't taste vinegary in the least. Go to the link and then scroll down to the recipe for "fermented Sriracha chili sauce". It's very easy to do, and although the recipe says to ferment it for 3-4 days, you can let it go for as long as two weeks. It makes a very nice sauce that, IMO, tastes even better than commercial Sriracha.

One of these days I'll have to post my recipe for Jamaican pepper sauce, which is made from habaneros and has a complex curry flavor. You may like that one, as it isn't vinegary at all. It doesn't keep as long, though.

I've never tried smoking the peppers for my sauces. I do have one sauce recipe to which I've added dried chipotles, and that adds a nice bit of smokiness.

Never made pepper infused oils.
 
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I just made a small batch today, also. A friend gave me a bag of mixed habanero, chili, red jalapenos from his garden. I don't cook the peppers. I saute some onions and garlic in a bit of oil then add them to the peppers in the food processor. White vinegar, orange juice, and salt. Then I let it sit out for a couple of days in a large mason jar with the lid on loosely to let it ferment. Then I bottle it in smaller bottles.
 

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steve, i will be making this soon. thanks for the recipe.

my thai birds exploded with chilis in the past few weeks, and they're very hot, pretty much at my heat limit. making a sauce will allow me to temper them just a bit. also, i still have 2 gallon ziplocks full of dried thai birds from the last 2 seasons, so i was looking for something else to do with this year's crop. your sauce looks perfect. :chef:
 
Recall the botulism risk of homemade chile oil

chili pepper oil botulism - Google Search
I reckon so...it is good advice. I would never advocate anything that I feel is dangerous. Having made several gallons of chili oil, I can only say I have not had any troubles. Your mileage may vary, but forewarned is forearmed. Thanks Jen!
 
steve, i will be making this soon. thanks for the recipe.

my thai birds exploded with chilis in the past few weeks, and they're very hot, pretty much at my heat limit. making a sauce will allow me to temper them just a bit. also, i still have 2 gallon ziplocks full of dried thai birds from the last 2 seasons, so i was looking for something else to do with this year's crop. your sauce looks perfect. :chef:
BT, if you need to temper the heat, you can also add some non-hot peppers into the mix (for example, red bell peppers).

In fact, you can use pretty much any kind of chilies in this recipe. Last year, I made the same sauce using jalapenos.

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sounds good. thanks again, steve

my yellow hot banana peppers and "caribbean hot" (what appear to be oddly named habs or scotch bonnets) also did well this year, probably from the lack of rain and many 90+ degree days. i may make a few sauces as i have enough of each dried and stored away for a number of years.

i've made hot sauces before, but what i really liked about your recipe is the photo. it looks like hot sauce. other recipes i've used incorporated a lot of other ingredients like carrots or fruit (for a sweet component, apparently) that made it look sorta like baby diahrrea. tasty, but nasty looking.

lol, i named one particularly ugly hot sauce "uranus rocket fuel".

btw, don't let the broadway producers of "wicked" see your label. :)
 
btw, don't let the broadway producers of "wicked" see your label. :)
Lol, I gave quite a few of those away to friends last year for Christmas gifts. I had originally tried to make a label with a cartoon jalapeno in a witch's hat, but my artistic skills weren't up to snuff. So I had to resort to shamelessly stealing the broadway artwork. :angel:
 
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