The Better than TABASCO Chili Pepper Hot Sauce is our version and recipe of the well known and wildly popular Tabasco® sauce.
Millions of people love the 3 ingredient Tabasco hot sauce (red peppers, vinegar and salt). They have a long history of making consistent pepper sauce.
Different sauces
If you have more of an ethnic palate, a vinegar-based hot sauce like Tabasco might not satisfy your taste buds. For you, we offer Moroccan harissa, chermoula, and lemon garlic aoli recipes. However, for those of you that do like the vinegar-based hot sauce, we’ve broken down the recipe below.
You can adjust the heat by substituting a range of chili peppers to match your Scoville tolerance. Our preferred red chili pepper for this recipe are Santaka chili peppers.
The Santaka Chili Pepper
From Japan, the Santaka chili pepper is a hot and flavorful Asian variety. It’s perfect for Asian cooking, especially stir-fries. But, they are also great in salsas and sauces, like ours. They can also be strung together, dried, and ground into powder.
Luckily for us, our neighbor and good friends, Judy and Gary, grow them in their backyard and brought us this batch.
Their SCOVILLE HEAT UNITS are: 40,000-50,000 SHU, making them about 25% hotter than the Tabasco chili peppers.
They grow to about 2 inches long and the plant itself is very attractive, with white flowers and an ornamental appearance. The chilies are cone-shaped, bright red when mature, and the skin is thin and wrinkled.
Getting Hot in Here
If heat is a concern, keep in mind that the boiling process, vinegar, seeding, and the addition of red bell peppers tame and balance the heat, while the garlic deepens the richness of the flavor.
Once cooled, you can store it in a covered glass jar for months. I use a little dab of it to spice up bland soup, accentuate fish and chicken dishes and mixed it with honey to make an outstanding chicken wing sauce coating.
Tips and Tricks
But enough about that. The recipe is 5 simple ingredients: chili peppers, red bell pepper, vinegar, salt and garlic cloves. You can add depth to it by adding cumin and mixing other chili peppers too, but I’d suggest starting with this basic recipe. You can always start experimenting with the next batch.
Remember to wear gloves and protective glasses if you’re not used to working with hot peppers. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy the recipe.
"Better than TABASCO®" Chili Pepper Hot Sauce
We put this stuff on everything.
- INGREDIENTS
- 4 hot red or orange chili peppers (such as habañero)
- 2 red bell peppers (3/4 pound, roughly chopped)
- 5 garlic cloves (roughly chopped)
- ¾ cup distilled white vinegar
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt
- PREPARATION
- Wearing rubber or latex gloves, roughly chop the chilies. Combine all ingredients in a small pot over medium-high heat. Once mixture is simmering, reduce heat to low, cover and continue to simmer until peppers are tender, 7 to 10 minutes. Do not inhale vapors; they will sting.
- Transfer mixture to a blender and purée. Pour into a medium jar and allow to cool uncovered. Cover tightly and refrigerate for three days. Keep stored in refrigerator; sauce will last for several weeks or months.
