Project Hot Sauce
My husband is obsessed with growing hot peppers. It humbly started out as a few small varieties in pots on the balcony of our apartment. These pots housed the typical jalapeno and some nondescript red pepper that in retrospect must have been a Cayenne. I would freeze the chilis at the end of the season and use them in salsas. At most they would fill a small ziplock bag.
Somehow over the years this obsession grew. We order seeds, I can no longer remember or pronounce all of the varieties, the plants have a permanent and large real estate in my garden, there are grow lights in my basement and I am concerned that the authorities may mistakenly show up with a warrant (oh wait- that’s legal now, phew!). At the end of each season we harvest bags of peppers that I cannot possibly hope to use up. Enter: Project Hot Sauce.
My husband and I have talked about making hot sauce for years before finally pulling the trigger. It was surprisingly easy! I can say that having delegated all of the chopping to him while I ‘researched’ and ‘supervised’. I’m no fool.
Given the amount of peppers we had, I was able to quadruple the recipes. Each variety will keep refridgerated for several months. If you have a lot of sauce and don’t want to give it away, you could consider canning it in jars for longer preservation. I used these adorable hot sauce bottles that even come with dripper inserts and seal with shrink wrap…you know in case we go into business one day!
We had a mix of many varieties of peppers. Ultimately, we divided them by colour (wanting to avoid an unattractive brown sludge). The resulting sauces were extremely spicy.
But it turns out that the possibilities are pretty endless when it comes to making your own hot sauce. You can ferment some of your peppers, control the heat with the varieties chosen, add in sweetness to balance things out, smoke some of the peppers for added complexity. These recipes provide a base for you to run with.
In case it is not obvious: make sure to wear gloves when chopping the peppers!
Cayenne Pepper Sauce
Adapted, Chili Pepper Madness
Yields one 5 oz bottle of hot sauce
10 ounces cayenne chili peppers, or a combination of red hot peppers
5-6 cloves garlic
1/2 cup white wine vinegar
1 tsp salt
Remove the steps and roughly chop the cayenne peppers and garlic cloves. Add all of the ingredients to a heavy bottomed, medium pot. Bring the mixture to a boil then reduce the heat to low and simmer for 20 minutes.
Cool the mixture slightly, then transfer it to a blender or food processor. Process it until the sauce is nice and smooth.
Strain the sauce through a fine metal strainer or sieve and pour into your desired bottle.
Smoky Green Hot Sauce
Yields one 5 oz bottle of hot sauce
10 ounces of green chili peppers (jalapeno, serrano, or unripened Jamaican peppers)
5-6 cloves garlic
1/2 cup white vinegar
1 tsp salt
Place 3 ounces of hot peppers on a charcoal barbeque or smoker, rotating occasionally until deeply charred. Allow to cool slightly and remove the stems and roughly chop the peppers. Remove the stems from the remaining peppers and roughly chop with the garlic cloves.
Add all of the ingredients to a heavy bottomed, medium pot. Bring the mixture to a boil then reduce the heat to low and simmer for 20 minutes.
Cool the mixture slightly, then transfer it to a blender or food processor. Process it until the sauce is nice and smooth.
Strain the sauce through a fine metal strainer or sieve and pour into your desired bottle.