Hot sauces

[vi edit]

These are my favorites in no particular order. They each have a use, and are favorites...

Tropical Pepper Company scotch bonnet sauce is one of my favorites. Great zing & flavor to that stuff.

 

[Insomniator]

Tropical Pepper Company scotch bonnet sauce is one of my favorites. Great zing & flavor to that stuff.

Scotch Bonnet hot sauces in general are amazing, and hot as hell. Some jerk chicken with a good jamaican scotch bonnet hot sauce... oh man.

That is contrary to ghost pepper sauce, which while hot I almost always find to taste terrible.

 

[GoodRevrnd]

Try Alex's Ugly Sauce. http://www.alexsuglysauce.com/blends.html

I personally don't find them to be that hot (at least the flavors I've tried), but they have a very good flavor that doesn't necessarily overwhelm your food with either vinegar or chili flavor and they are at least hot enough where you can just add more to get the desired heat level.

 

[smackababy]

I love the taste of it myself. It's like wings in a bottle. As a condiment it's a fine product. You can splash the shit all over something that you want to taste like Franks, and what do you know, it tastes like Franks. Same role as ketchup and mustard imo. What I think of as hot sauces don't define the whole flavor of what I add them to. They just add a certain amount of oomph and some smokey, roasty overtones (depending on the sauce).

I'd much rather just take the 10 minutes to combine Frank's with vinegar, worcestershire, butter, and some spices to make a proper wing sauce. =) Frank's on it's own just doesn't do it for me. As a go to sauce for chicken that isn't wings: Tabasco's Chipotle sauce is the best. It has a nice smokey flavor, some vinegar (I love acidity) and the jalapeno comes through enough.

Scotch Bonnet hot sauces in general are amazing, and hot as hell. Some jerk chicken with a good jamaican scotch bonnet hot sauce... oh man.

That is contrary to ghost pepper sauce, which while hot I almost always find to taste terrible.

I haven't found a ghost pepper sauce that I liked the taste of. And that completely defeats the purpose of hot sauce, IMO. If you aren't going to enhance the flavor of what I'm eating and just be hot, I might as well spray it with pepper spray and be done with it. I've had ghost pepper sauces and salsas; all awful.

 

[mnewsham]

Haven't tried the stuff personally, but my brother loves the stuff. my brother introduced me to the guy who bread the Carolina reaper. Too hot for me I think. Will probably get my brother some of the Carolina reaper salsa for Christmas or his birthday.

 

[Markbnj]

I'd much rather just take the 10 minutes to combine Frank's with vinegar, worcestershire, butter, and some spices to make a proper wing sauce. =) Frank's on it's own just doesn't do it for me.

Agreed, I was just trying to illustrate the difference between that sort of condiment and an actual hot sauce. Although I will dribble Franks plain on chicken tenders and crap like that.

 

[SithSolo1]

I use Louisiana Original as my every day go to sauce, cheap and tastes good with a mild heat. If I want something a little more robust I go for the Cholula.

I'm not to big on hot stuff, a raw Jalapeno is about the most I can handle.

 

[lxskllr]

I haven't found a ghost pepper sauce that I liked the taste of. And that completely defeats the purpose of hot sauce, IMO. If you aren't going to enhance the flavor of what I'm eating and just be hot, I might as well spray it with pepper spray and be done with it. I've had ghost pepper sauces and salsas; all awful.

The Tropical Pepper co sauce I use for adding heat, especially Indian food. It tastes good, but nothing to write home about. A friend of mine in Sweden makes a ghost chili sauce, but it's too spendy to get regularly($25 a bottle). It's great on cheese and crackers though. If it were cheaper and more readily available, it would be on the top of my list.

 

[Insomniator]

I use Louisiana Original as my every day go to sauce, cheap and tastes good with a mild heat. If I want something a little more robust I go for the Cholula.

I'm not to big on hot stuff, a raw Jalapeno is about the most I can handle.

I'm tellin ya, if you like louisiana original give the habanero a shot. It is very hot, but tastes great... its like the louisisana on steroids. Cholula just sucks in general imo. A raw jalapeno is pretty damn hot! If you can handle that you can handle the louisiana hab.

 

[SlowSpyder]

I generally am not a Tabasco fan, at least not their original. But their habanero sauce is worth getting by the gallon. Perfect about of heat for most foods, tons of flavor.

 

[MongGrel]

+1 we have many but that is our usual one.

Always a bottle around here.

 

[lxskllr]

I generally am not a Tabasco fan, at least not their original. But their habanero sauce is worth getting by the gallon. Perfect about of heat for most foods, tons of flavor.

If I could have only one, it would be original Tabasco. It's stout enough sit on top of food, but thin enough to soak into something like fries. You can also use a bunch without it making things too hot. Nice and bourbony, without too much salt. The habanero is great also, but for all around use, I like the original.

 

[GoodRevrnd]

Cholula always tastes like gallons of salt to me. Tapatio for life!

 

[DrPizza]

Aren't you guys cute.
None of you noticed that "empty out 1/4 of the bottle and put in 2 tablespoons of cayenne pepper" means that he gets the tiny little bottles - the kind that people get when they wonder if it'll be too hot for them, so they get the smallest bottle, only to have it sit on a shelf in the cupboard after the first taste. You know... the size you guys apparently get, since you didn't notice the problem with volume in the OP.

OP: if you like the taste of Frank's Red Hot, they also make a Red Hotter, which has about the same kick as tobasco. Both come in gallon bottles, plus smaller bottles for those who rarely use hot sauce.

Dear Franks, if you're reading this - bastards! Why'd you stop using the glass gallon bottles?

 

[UglyCasanova]

Cholula is really good stuff on fried chicken. Other than that I do Crystals/Louisiana/Tabasco etc. I need to branch out and try some different ones.

 

[SlowSpyder]

Aren't you guys cute.
None of you noticed that "empty out 1/4 of the bottle and put in 2 tablespoons of cayenne pepper" means that he gets the tiny little bottles - the kind that people get when they wonder if it'll be too hot for them, so they get the smallest bottle, only to have it sit on a shelf in the cupboard after the first taste. You know... the size you guys apparently get, since you didn't notice the problem with volume in the OP.

OP: if you like the taste of Frank's Red Hot, they also make a Red Hotter, which has about the same kick as tobasco. Both come in gallon bottles, plus smaller bottles for those who rarely use hot sauce.

Dear Franks, if you're reading this - bastards! Why'd you stop using the glass gallon bottles?

Ahem, I like hot sauce.

 

[zinfamous]

Cholula is really good stuff on fried chicken. Other than that I do Crystals/Louisiana/Tabasco etc. I need to branch out and try some different ones.

yeah, try some non-cayenne sauces. I think the flavor of habanero makes it the best of all hot peppers. So much more versatile, imo. As others have said, cayenne is good, btu there is little variety there, and the ghost/jolokia varieties just taste...off. Not horrible, but not very good, either. Plus, they can be ridiculously hot, so it's not really worth it.

when it comes to peppers just for heat, i like certain fresh jalepeno varieties in my food.

 

[MongGrel]

I like many, but El Yucateco has been my go-to brand for many years now. Everything they make is very good. The one second from right, the XXX "special Maya" recipe is very special, indeed. Don't even think about it: just buy a bottle if you can find it.

I also like various Marie Sharps blends--they have an orange and a grapefruit sauce that is very versatile.

For cayenne-based sauces, there really isn't much variety that I've found; so I stick with Texas Pete or Louisiana/Crystal

I'm still going to start picking those up myself as I've always liked them in a few restaurants and I agree they are good.

I love Cayenne hot drops, but they put em in those little bottles

 

[waggy]

I generally am not a Tabasco fan, at least not their original. But their habanero sauce is worth getting by the gallon. Perfect about of heat for most foods, tons of flavor.

they have habanero flavored? i gotta try that.

i forgot i have a bottle of
https://www.google.com/shopping/product/6714895224244471737?q=ghost+pepper+wing+sauce&rlz=1C1MSIM_enUS576US576&espv=2&bav=on.2,or.r_cp.r_qf.&ion=1&biw=1280&bih=631&bvm=pv.xjs.s.en_US.UmXF0W31FL8.O&tch=1&ech=1&psi=UdT7U8DWG9KvogSb-oHYDg.1409012830519.3&ei=Y9T7U_DXFbDJsQSimoLICQ&ved=0CM4BEKkrMAg

This shit is HOT and not bad.

 

[MongGrel]

I still usually have a bottle of this hanging around in the frig too.

Not firey hot but love the taste.

 

[foghorn67]

I also like Louisiana Original and a lot of Tabasco varieties. If you want a surprisingly good wing sauce, try Tabasco's.

 

[SlowSpyder]

they have habanero flavored? i gotta try that.

i forgot i have a bottle of
https://www.google.com/shopping/product/6714895224244471737?q=ghost+pepper+wing+sauce&rlz=1C1MSIM_enUS576US576&espv=2&bav=on.2,or.r_cp.r_qf.&ion=1&biw=1280&bih=631&bvm=pv.xjs.s.en_US.UmXF0W31FL8.O&tch=1&ech=1&psi=UdT7U8DWG9KvogSb-oHYDg.1409012830519.3&ei=Y9T7U_DXFbDJsQSimoLICQ&ved=0CM4BEKkrMAg


This shit is HOT and not bad.

Yea, it is odd, I'm not crazy about their regular sauce (too thin, too vinegar-y for me... but it isn't bad on breakfast foods), but I really like their habanero sauce. It has banana and mango in it, maybe some other fruit. It isn't sweet at all, don't get turned off by that, it just has this 'bright' flavor to it with a nice punch of heat that for me is just about the right amount to compliment food and not become all about the heat.

I like trying different sauces... always looking for a new favorite.

 

[Childs]

The only sauce I go out of my way to get. Its not Guatemalan Insanity Pepper hot, but it'll wake you up if you use too much.

 

[Mr. Pedantic]

Not very. A little more bite than Franks.

The only benchmark I have is this stuff:

We don't really get much variety in the land of sheep and hobbitses.

 

[MongGrel]

The only benchmarks I have are sriracha and this stuff:

You must expand your hot sauces grasshopper.

*snatch the chili from my hand*

Just teasing a bit