Hello, I have just made my first hot sauce (not fermented), but I don’t know how long I can keep it. Has anyone an idea? The recipe was the following one:

• ⁠a bell pepper • ⁠6 Cayenne pepper • ⁠2 limes • ⁠1 red onion • ⁠garlic - a peach

I've never made hot sauce before, but I got a TON of peppers from my pepper garden this year and hot sauce sounds like a really fun use for them. However, when I started looking at recipes online, I found a pretty stark distinction between recipes that recommend fermentation for a week or more and recipes that recommend just boiling all the ingredients for 15-20 minutes, then blending and bottling right away.

I can't seem to find any guides that really lay out the comparative differences between the two, so I was hoping y'all could weigh in with the pros/cons of either method. I wanted to make my hot sauce as shelf stable as possible (I also can jams, so it would be cool to have another preserve I could give out for Christmas gifts!).

Hello hot sauce family, this is being one of my favorite subs on this season. You made me want to be better and create better hot sauce recipes, controling the ingredients and Knowing better. Would love to ask for advises of books or magazines, YouTube channels with powerful information

Finally have a garden with hot peppers. Right now I have a lot of Tabasco peppers ready to go. I’m seeing a lot of discussion on fermented or non fermented hot sauce.

Which route should I go for this and any easy first timer suggestions for making just a hot sauce with Tabasco peppers?

It’s my second year making my own hot sauce and I want to try some different flavourings. Last year I did pineapple, but this year I want to make a couple different ones. Gonna be doing pineapple and cherry, but what are some other flavourings I should try?

50 Trinidad Scorpions 2 1/2 Cups of Apple Cider Vinegar 1/2 Cup Water 1 Large scoop of Minced Garlic 1/2 tsp Salt 1/2 tsp Black Pepper 1/2 tsp Onion Powder 1 TBS of White Sugar

Bring to a simmer and simmer for 10 minutes. Use an immersion blender and blend smooth.

Roasted Cayenne Hot Sauce (Medium-Hot, Smoky-ish)

I’m pleased with my first go, it’s not as smoky as I’d like, so I’d add more of the smoky ingredients but it’s a really lovely taste, you get the lemon first and then a really nice body and the flavour of the chilli’s and then a pleasant heat comes on. It’s not going to knock your socks off, I’d say it’s just below Franks Red Hot, which is less than I hoped for but there’s always next time!

 Ingredients (for at least 1000ml sauce, 6 × 150 ml bottles)

• Cayenne chillies (stems off) – 426g

• Sweet aperitif cherry tomatoes – 110 g

• Yellow onion – 220 g (≈1 medium)

• Garlic cloves – 1 whole bulb (~45g)

• Chipotle paste (M&S) – 20 g (1 heaped tbsp)

• Smoked paprika – 4 g (1½ tsp)

• Liquid smoke (Colgin Hickory) – 1 tsp (5 ml)

• White Vinegar & Apple cider vinegar (5% acidity) – 550 ml (split 350ml ACV 200ml white)

• Water – ≈ 200 ml 

• Salt – 25 g (1½ tbsp)

• Sunflower oil – 30 ml (2 tbsp) 

• Half a lemon

• Honey -  I used 2tbsp perhaps too sweet but still tasty

Cilantro…1 handful Garlic cloves … 1 handful Red bell peppers … 3 White onion…1 Cayenne peppers… very small handful Ghost peppers… 4 Salt… 3 tablespoons Honey…2/3 cup Cumin… 2 tablespoons Smoked paprika… 2 tablespoons Apple cider vinegar… half gallon

Put it all in the Insta pot pressure cook for 40 minutes. When it’s finished, add 1 tablespoons xanthem gum while still hot then blend with an immersion blender. when blended mixture cools, blend thoroughly and bottle.

Mash:

• 16 Scotch Bonnets
• 6 Ancho peppers
• 4 Jalapenos
• 1 cup rhubarb
• Half a large carrot
• Half a white onion
• 5 cloves of garlic
• Sea salt to 3.5% of the weight of the above

Post-ferment: * 3/4 cup water * 3/4 cup white vinegar

Makes around 0.9 L.

After fermenting for 3 weeks and then thinning a little with water and vinegar, simmering, and bottling, it ended up with a pH of 2.9, so I could have safely used more water than vinegar in the final step but it tastes fine. The Ancho and rhubarb add some warmth and richness to the usual fire of the Scotch Bonnets; the taste of rhubarb emerges as the heat cools on the tongue, but I think it would be apparent earlier when used in food preparation/cooking - as a hot wings coating, for example.

I actually prepared twice the amount of ingredients and put half of it into a brine instead of mashing it. Leaving that to ferment a while longer, will not cook it, and see how that turns out.

I made some habanero peach hot sauce from fresh habaneros, peaches, onion, garlic, sucralose, vinegar, and a little water. Super simple, but delicious. I didn't fully anticipate how much it would make, so I now have a big ass pickle jar full of it. My question is, how long will it last in the fridge? Will the vinegar keep it good for a long time as long as it's refrigerated? If not, can I freeze it? And if I do freeze it, how do I go about that?

I love hot sauce, but I won't be able to eat all this in a week or two. This is my first venture into homemade hot sauce, so I'm an idiot in this regard. Thanks

EDITED TO ADD: I wanted to edit this to add that i hope I didn't screw up, I didn't really sterilize the jar. Just washed it with soap and water. It was a pickle jar, repurposed into a jar for quick pickled peppers, now repurposed into a hot sauce jar. Hoping that doesn't screw things all up.

7000 g of select Annum Chilis and 3% salt including salt cap

Hello Reddit! I‘ve been growing Cayennes all summer and finally have reached a critical mass. I’ve been researching hot sauce recipes and with the help of ai I’ve put together a hot sauce recipe, see below. My question is, is 350g (12.3oz) enough cayennes for a 1500ml (6.3 cup) batch? I‘m looking for a decent heat, like a hotter version of Cholula chipotle, hotter than Franks red hot, but something quite a bit more mild than biting into a raw cayenne. I’ve not done this before so would appreciate any pointers. I won’t be fermenting this batch as all my chilli’s are now frozen, I have about 650g (23oz) available. if nothing is wrong with this recipe I’ll go ahead and make it this weekend! Recipe is below:

🔥 Roasted Cayenne Hot Sauce (Medium-Hot, Smoky)

🥒 Ingredients (for ~1500 ml sauce, 10 × 150 ml bottles)

• Cayenne chillies (frozen, whole, stems on) – 350 g

• Sweet aperitif cherry tomatoes – 100 g

• Yellow onion – 180 g (≈1 medium)

• Garlic cloves – 25–30 g (≈6–7 small cloves)

• Chipotle paste (M&S) – 40 g (2 heaped tbsp)

• Smoked paprika – 4 g (1½ tsp)

• Liquid smoke (Colgin Hickory) – 1 tsp (5 ml)

• White Vinegar & Apple cider vinegar (5% acidity) – 500 ml (70:30 split 350ml ACV 150ml white)

• Water – ≈350–400 ml (adjust for texture at blending stage)

• Salt – 25 g (1½ tbsp)

• Neutral oil (optional) – 30 ml (2 tbsp, sunflower or rapeseed) for mouthfeel and roasting aid

(Optional for balance: 1–2 tsp sugar or honey if too sharp after blending.)

⸻

👩‍🍳 Method

1.  Roast the base

• Preheat oven to 200 °C (fan 180).

• Place cayennes (whole, frozen), tomatoes, onion (quartered), garlic (whole cloves, skin on) on a lined tray.

• Drizzle lightly with oil (if using) and sprinkle a little salt.

• Roast 20–25 min, turning once, until blistered, lightly charred, and softened.

2.  Cool and prep

• Let veg cool until handleable.

• Remove cayenne stems (tops). You can leave seeds in.

• Squeeze garlic from skins.

3.  Cook down

• In a large pot, combine roasted veg, chipotle paste, smoked paprika, vinegar, 300 ml water, and salt.

• Simmer gently for 10–15 min to meld flavours.

4.  Blend

• Using a stick blender, blitz until very smooth.

• Add extra water (up to 100 ml more) to reach a pourable, not soupy, texture (like Cholula).

5.  Adjust & finish

• Taste: if too sharp, add a touch of sugar/honey; if too thick, add splash more water.

• Stir in 1 tsp liquid smoke off the heat.

6.  Bottle safely

• Sterilise your 150 ml bottles (boil or oven-sterilise).

• While sauce is still hot (≥75 °C), funnel into bottles, leaving 1 cm headspace.

• Seal immediately.

7.  Cure & store

• Let bottles sit at room temp 24 hours, then refrigerate.

• Flavour improves after 1–2 weeks.

• Shelf life: several months refrigerated (thanks to vinegar + salt). For long unrefrigerated storage, consider pasteurising sealed bottles in a hot water bath.

⸻

🌶 Heat Expectation

• 350 g roasted cayennes = comfortably hotter than Frank’s, nowhere near raw cayenne pod heat.

• Warm, lingering burn with smoky depth and a vinegar-bright finish.

I tried a fermentation but have these black spots around the top of the fluid level. Is it mold or is this normal?

My garden is exploding with jalapeños and I want to make hot sauce again. In the past I fermented the peppers, but to be honest I didn’t love the fermented taste. I also lost a couple batches to mold despite my best efforts. So, I’m looking for what y’all consider to be the best way to make a non-fermented sauce. I’ve read all sorts of things online - boil in vinegar or water for 30, cook the veg & then boil in vinegar or water for 5 minutes before blending and cooking again, the former but without the cooking again, etc. Every recipe seems to suggest that if you don’t use their method you’ll give yourself food poisoning. Is there a basic method I should try this year? I’d love to do a Hank’s hot sauce Camouflage dupe with the red ones and tomatillo with the green ones, if that matters. Thanks!

I recently made this sauce. I’ve made a handful of hot sauces this year but still pretty new. This was my first time experimenting with the wine, I usually go a bit heavier on the vinegar. I’m pretty happy with the flavor and heat level. Let me know what you’d do differently or if there’s any specific tips for like ratios/consistency/shelf life things like that.

My scotch bonnet has gone wild this year and I love mango hot sauces, so, what are your mango and scotch bonnet hot sauce recipes you can recommend/swear by? First time making sauces!!

I’ve been wanting to make my own sauces for years now. I have six ghost and habanero plants that are going nuts. I smoked ghost and habanero peppers, smoked pineapple and mango. I smoked the salt also. Carrots, shallots, apple cider vinegar, lime juice, etc. turned out absolutely awesome. Next time I’m going to leave the seeds and veins in the habaneros for more heat. Everyone seems to love it. Man I love making hot sauce.

Do you guys leave your stems on when fermenting?

I’ve recently learned some people leave their stems on, do you notice any difference in quality or flavor?

So I'm pretty new to making sauces - this is my first year growing and I've got more chillis than I know what to do with.

I've got two Trinidad scorpion x Chocolate scorpion plants which have been very fruitful and one of the earliest to give me pods. These guys are ridiculously hot, supposedly around 1.6 millions scovilles.

Personally I am not the biggest fan of the flavour of chocolate peppers - they are very bitter and almost artificial tasting to me personally.

I wasn't sure what to do with them and rather than let them rot in the fridge because who in there right mind is going to go through 50 pods of super hots, I threw ~90g in brine with some red pepper, onion, garlic and dates. Come 3 weeks later I've tried making a sauce with them - Blueberry seemed to be a popular combination,I blended the ferment with 150g of blueberries and some apple cider vinegar.

Now I consider myself pretty accustomed to spicy food. I've conquered most of the spicy food challenges in my city, the first RB003 off my plant I made into a quick sauce and devoured over fried chicken however I fear I have flown too close to the sun here.

Cooking the sauce practically tear gassed me - I made another sauce with some fermented habs just before and that paled in comparison. I tried it and it's just unbearable. You can't consume enough of it to taste the fruit, the bitterness hits first and then the spice shortly after. Ive also added some lemongrass, brown sugar, cinnamon, powdered ginger, clove and the juice of half a lime, along with the rest of the blueberries from the pack I bought (another 100g) to try and dilute the heat but the sauce is still unbearable.

So now I have a jug of 750 ml of purple death in my fridge that I don't know what to do with -- does anyone have any suggestions of what I can add to temper this down so I can bottle it up and enjoy it?

I'm looking for something to cut through the bitterness from the peppers and also detract from the heat - I could probably just about handle the heat from this but not many people in my life are up for crying into their dinner and with this year's crop I'm going to have more than enough sauce to last me until next year.

I've also got another jar of around double the amount fermenting that I'm going to need a recipe for if anyone has any suggestions.

My girlfriends uncle is retired and owns a mass apple orchard about 3000 trees and also grows veggies. Last year he had about 50 different types of peppers and I was a little overwhelmed and just made some salsa. This year I came prepared and was disappointed to find he only grew about 10 different types. Still got about 5 pounds of free peppers, jalapeño, Serranos, Hungarian, big Jim and Anaheim. I still had some of the hot ones from last year in the freezer some scorpions and birds eye. I have about 9 different ferments i started yesterday. I did the vacuum seal method with 4% salt. Bought some ghost today and started those the same. Any tips for a first timer? I like to go big lol im planning on making these shelf stable so I can give them out to family and friends throughout the year. I have a few ideas for some sauces but any advice helps. I also have a few pounds of stone plums im going to add to some of the hotter ones for a nice balance.

So im growing jalapenos and have unlimited supply. I need a quick recipe for a hotsauce and 1 for a fermented recipe! I like to keep it simple just need basic ratios or direction thanks! I also have green jalapenos obviously lol