How to Make Hot Sauce

Published on Thursday, May 6, 2010, by Chris Rochelle / Edit Post

The power of chile peppers should not be underestimated. The bhut jolokia pepper is being employed in anti-terrorist hand grenades. And while it makes perfect sense to weaponize heat, I'm against hurting people with my favorite thing in the world. I like hot sauce so much, I made my own using habaneros and serranos, blood oranges, and key limes. I call it Habanero Blood Orange Death Kick. If you can't find blood oranges or key limes, play around with different citrus fruit. Here’s the recipe.

1. Gather your ingredients: 15 habanero peppers, 4 serrano peppers (see our handy chart), 3 blood oranges, 12 key limes, 3 carrots, 4 cloves garlic, 1 teaspoon sea salt.

ingredients

2. Cut carrots into quarter-inch rounds.

cut carrots

3. Throw carrots and whole peppers into boiling water with four cloves of garlic for 12 to 15 minutes.

boil

4. While the carrots and peppers boil, juice all the limes and blood oranges into measuring cup making about 1 cup juice.

juice citrus

5. Drain carrots and peppers and put them in the food processor with juice and salt.

process

6. Puree on high for about 30 seconds.

puree

7. Pour mixture into a jar and place in refrigerator. Let mellow for a few days (if you can wait) before serving.

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POST A COMMENT |6 Comments

COMMENT

  • These people really love the serranos and carrots... When I get back from the New Orleans Hot Sauce Show, I'll post one of my recipes with Ghost, habaneros and Chipotle (roasted jalapeno)... I'm also meeting up with Butch T (Trinidad Scorpion), so there maybe some World Record Hot Sauce recipes too :)

  • Dave,
    vinegar is great to replace the acidity of the limes and orange. I just made a 'roasted jalapeno, white vinegar' hot sauce which is so good we've gone through a whole jar in a week!
    check out this vinegar and citrus story we did for inspiration!
    http://www.chow.com/stories/11650?tag=search_results;results_list

  • This sounds like a keeper, only one question. Can I leave out the blood orange and line? and substitute vinrgar? I am partial to the lime, not a fan of the oranges.

  • if you can it, it will last forever

  • JohnE O, I'm not really sure how long it will last! I've made this recipe
    twice. The first batch I kept in the fridge and ate it for 2 months with no
    problems. With the second it's now at 1 month and tastes really good! After
    about 2 weeks all of the flavors start to really work together.
    Try mixing it 1 part hot sauce to 6 parts honey and eat it with
    sausages. ..It's good in tuna salad...+READ

    JohnE O, I'm not really sure how long it will last! I've made this recipe
    twice. The first batch I kept in the fridge and ate it for 2 months with no
    problems. With the second it's now at 1 month and tastes really good! After
    about 2 weeks all of the flavors start to really work together.
    Try mixing it 1 part hot sauce to 6 parts honey and eat it with
    sausages. ..It's good in tuna salad sandwiches...Ok, I need to go eat
    something now
    Chris of CHOW-COLLAPSE

  • Thanks a bunch for this. I've always had an excess of hot peppers from the garden and never knew how to make homemade hot sauce. What's the shelf life of this?