What's your go-to hot sauce?
I add hot sauce to nearly everything savory that I eat, but I've never really had a go-to brand. Usually I've got a ton of tiny no-name-brand bottles around from various gift baskets that my wife or her family got me as christmas or birthday gifts, or my wife will pick up random stuff she finds on sale when grocery shopping. But those are pretty hit-or-miss whether they're actually any good or not, and I crave consistency, so I've decided that I want to find a good all-round sauce (or perhaps a brand of sauce with a few variants), ideally something I can purchase a decent quantity of at a time, either online (direct from the company or Amazon or whatever) or reliably from a grocery store, and just replenish whenever my reserves start to get low. Ideally something that won't break the bank, too, considering I go through it at a decent pace.
I like the taste of Frank's, but I'd rate its heat at a 0.5 and I'm looking for something at least 7 or 8 (or higher). I've tried Tobasco and it's pretty mid on all aspects (and way too watery). I really dislike the flavor of Sriracha--it hits me completely wrong for some reason. I recently tried some Cholula extra hot and its heat is acceptable, flavor-wise nothing amazing but right now based on price/availability it's my top contender. I know there are better sauces out there, and brands that I've either forgotten or never even heard of because I'm not a connoisseur and never really paid much attention, and I don't have the vocabulary to really speak to what I'm looking for flavor-profile-wise, so my question is basically the title: What's your go-to hot sauce? Not necessarily your favorite, but the default you'll happily reach for regardless of what you're putting it on and that you've always got stocked?
edit--Too many responses to reply individually, but thank you all for all of the suggestions! I definitely plan on checking several of the new-to-me sauces out in the coming weeks.
I feel similarly about Tobasco and Sriracha.
I have basically a small bookshelf full of hot sauces and enjoy many of them, but in particular the ones I use most often:
Cholula is my favorite "basic" one, though I don't use it often anymore.
For nearly everything, Tabanero's Curry Habanero
For pizza specifically, Chabe Sambal
I also really enjoy Secret Aardvark's Serrabanero for a greener sauce
I could easily toss all my other sauces and survive on these alone.
I'm not a fan of Tobasco's Original Red hot sauce either, but their Green Jalapeño sauce is actually quite good, IMO.
From the Tabasco brand I actually prefer the Habanero Sauce. It's quite hot (at least for me), and I really like the fruity taste.
Came here to mention Secret Aardvark, might be some of the best "general" hot sauce out there, imo. Just spicy enough to be interesting but won't ruin the next 10 min of your meal.
Hanks is also very good, for that kind of more, accessible sauce
Like @0x29a, Cholula is my fav basic hot sauce.
Have a friend that swears by Marie Sharp's, which has nice heat and flavor. It's habanero-based, and "Belizean Heat" is the extra hot version. Good stuff. When Walmart was carrying the minis I bought quite a few of them. Haven't had much luck finding regular bottles in stores; it's more of an online purchase.
I second Marie Sharp! Definitely my go to.
From milder sauces (like Tabasco level), Tapatio and Secret Aardvark work with pretty much everything for me. I'm not a huge fan of really hot sauces, they just don't tend to taste very good to me, but Zuzu's 7-Pot Sauce by Dawson is an amazing, complex taste that has kick.
I love most of the stuff that Torchbearer makes but the Garlic Reaper in particular. It's about 10x as hot as Cholula extra hot, but you can just use less of it. The Garlic Habanero is probably comparable to Cholula extra hot.
Fair warning, their garlic reaper is really more like 50x as hot as Cholula. It's extremely hot and has a pretty unique flavor for a super hot sauce. Since it is so garlic heavy it doesn't go with everything, so I wouldn't recommend this as your One True Sauce, but it is good for when you want the heat and it does go.
It's my thesis that there's no universal hot sauce.
Every place that grows peppers has its own constellation of seasonings used in making condiments that go with the cuisine. And I love heat, so yes, I've got a pepper sauce collection, including the homemade ghost pepper sauce below.
I'll use Sriracha for Vietnamese food; locally made chile crisp for Szechuan and rice-based dishes; Chipotle Tabasco for generic burritos; habanero/ghost pepper-based sauces for Indian, Caribbean, and pulse-based vegan foods (Trinidad Hot Habanero Pepper Sauce and Pepper Palace Seven Pot Chocolate Douglah are good ones); El Yucateco Black Label Reserve Habanero Sauce for Mexican beans; Frank's for Southern fried foods and greens; Calabrian roasted red peppers or red pepper flakes for Italian pasta...
If I had to pick my ride-or-die hot sauce, this basic ghost pepper hot sauce recipe is neutral enough to go with almost everything that needs heat. But it doesn't really add flavor other than the taste of the peppers themselves - a little fruity and some sharpness from the vinegar.
I suspect that the condiments were chosen based on how well they went with the cuisine, and the cuisine was chosen based on how well it went with the condiments. So swapping condiments between cuisines would be like swapping colors between color palettes.
I make a similar sauce to the one linked with some of my home grown 7-pot peppers. I also don't use olive oil in mine because I find the flavor oddly noticeable and it doesn't seem to "fit" (just use another oil of choice).
Yes, this is a very generic recipe that can use any super hot peppers. I normally use a neutral oil like peanut or sunflower seed. I'll make variations where I throw in a mix of whatever super hot peppers I've grown, carrots, ginger, garlic, lime juice instead of vinegar, lemongrass, fish sauce... it's pretty versatile.
I am a big fan of using carrots and garlic in my sauces as well. I sometimes use lime juice as well, but I find that I like using different vinegars (usually a mix of white and apple cider).
Oh man I love the original default Tabasco. I know most people aren't too much of a fan, but it hits just right for me.
To me, Tabasco is less of a hot sauce like Sriracha or other pepper sauces and more of an accidentally spicy vinegar dressing.
If you're careful with the bottle as to not overpower the taste of the food itself (which is quick with Tabasco) you can use it as a substitute for other acids to round out the flavor and to top it off, give your dish a little bit of a bite.
I find the other Tabasco not up to my Thai taste bud. The garlic one too light (I add like 5% of the bottle and it is still not spicy), the Hanabero one taste exotic, I don't like the green one, etc. Haven't try their Sriracha though - afterall why would I buy a non-Thai Sriracha.
I tried the original Tabasco with everything Thai-Chinese food I got bored of the original flavor. It's like an override button for flavor. Turns out it goes really well with egg fried rice that I can't live without it now the same way Uncle Roger can't live without MSG. Noodle soup - don't do it. Pad Thai & Pad See ew - it's ok but I think Sriracha is better. Stewed Pork Knuckles - it's really good, the dipping they serve in many shops are vinegar + chilli anyway so it's just the same thing but even better.
I like it because it has just a couple ingredients, no weird stuff/chemicals I can't pronounce. Did I have better ones? Yes. But tabasco is easy to find, and good level of heat. Can always add more to make it hotter or go for one of the extra hot variants.
There is something to be said about its simplicity. Probably why it works so well as a spicy vinegar too. It tends to add just enough complexity without changing the dish itself overly much.
I find other hot sauces to focus too much on heat. Which, while fine, tends to take control of the meal. Or they focus too much on being a distinct taste, which also alters the dish a lot.
That's not to say I don't like other hot sauces but I find the variety of dishes that allow Tabasco to be greater than other sauces.
I'm a big fan of Melinda's "bhut jolokia ghost pepper hot sauce". I haven't had sriracha in years so I can't comment on their similarities but it miiight be in the same family so you might want to try a mini bottle.
I'd add a +1 to Tabañero. Their "XXX" is like a spicier version of tabasco if I'm remembering correctly though I don't recall it being that spicy. Their "sriracha honey" flavor was pretty good on pizza.
Cholula's "sweet habanero" is also pretty good and you see that in stores plenty but take that opinion with a grain of salt because I only tried it after accidentally leaving a (sealed) bottle of it on a shelf for a year and then decided to try it on a whim. Might not have been an accurate representation of that product :')
Aye Melinda's Ghost Pepper is only sauce I've gotten from a store that I actually like. Rare to get one that is both spicy and tasty
I can't eat eggs without it now lol
Agreed! I really like the flavor and it is fantastic on eggs :) great addition on avocado toast with egg too.
I'm pretty basic.
Unfortunately for you Huy Fong Sriracha is my go to. Melinda's Sriracha is a solid backup, and their Habanero Garlic is a great alternative. I plan to keep them stocked. I would recommend trying other srirachas as they all taste different, and Melinda's is quite good, almost fresher/less fermenty.
El Yucateco is also really great, their habanero packs a solid punch, I think. It's in my southern California grocery stores, but I'm not sure about nationwide offering.
Try Tabasco's other sauces. I like their chipotle as something to add smoke, jalapeno for green brightness, and they have a scorpion pepper sauce that's good for adding a sting of heat to stuff. The Jalapeno is a good general sauce, though.
I love El Yucateco. I can find it here in Canada pretty easily (not at every store, but definitely at any specialty store, and sometimes the odd grocery store with a larger selection).
It's not a vinegar-forward sauce, but Los Calientes Verde strikes the right balance for me of just a little spicy while being also bright and a bit tangy. It's just really tasty even by itself, and it'll compliment most proteins well.
You mentioned that Tabasco is kind of mid and I'd agree with you for the original flavor, but the chipotle-sauce can add a nice touch of smokiness to things. Still watery though.
All of the Hot Ones sauces are actually pretty tasty, but all of them that aren't some variations of their "Last Dab" sauce are quite tame in the heat department. They are also way too expensive IMO, but that's what being tied to a popular web show costs I guess.
It ueed to be Chipotle Cholula, but Frank's has peppers as the #1 ingredient rather than water or vinegar so it's now my main. Most often I mix Frank's with Kewpie mayo for a pretty dope dip.
A few, but my obvious first go to is Tabasco, just because its universal.
If I want something to be added with great flavor and incredible heat then the African Ghost pepper sauce from African Dream Foods. Picked it up last year from a trip to the Denver Zoo, figured it would be decent, not hot, but just okay - blew my mind with the flavor and heat they packed into it. I am a huge fan of hot sauces, and this one is seriously great.
The best is the one my mother makes. It's just a combination of several (if not all) local peppers available in our town with some olive oil, salt, some lemon juice. Some crushed, some whole. Some more for flavor, others more for spiciness. It is potent with a complex flavour. Two or three drops is enough to make an entire plate of food extremely spicy. EDIT: she also adds garlic sometimes.
The second is Gota. It must be one of the cheapest hot sauces in Brazil. You find it in a lot of restaurants, diners, etc. I don't have a refined palate. I can't even describe the flavor, really. It's kinda sour, salty. Not too strong but strong enough that putting a bunch of it gives a pleasant heat.
...that homemade sauce sounds wonderful: is it prepared raw, pickled, or cooked?..is it shelf-stable or do you have to refrigerate it?..
They are all raw and fresh. Some are whole, some are ground up (but not to a powder). The mixture is shelf stable by the nature of the ingredients alone. But you must take some care, so always use clean spoons in the container. That's what my mother says at least. I never saw them to go bad regardless.
You've got me wanting to try making something like the olive oil/lemon one. Is it made with fresh peppers, or dry?
All the peppers she uses are fresh. I don't even know their names to be honest.
Thanks! And that's ok, even though i know different peppers have different flavours, i can have a bit of fun experimenting for a taste i like with ingredients available to me :)
Hey, this is my time to shine! I love hot sauce, I have probably twenty bottles right now not including what I make for myself from the super hots that I grow.
I know you said you already got too many responses, but I personally and not a fan of most of the responses here and I also don't think most of them will be hot enough for you.
It's hard to judge what your "7 or 8" would be, but I'll give some brands/sauces that are my go to usuals:
Iguana hot sauces are some of my favorites and not too expensive. They have a bunch, but most aren't that spicy. The first two are available on Amazon (used to be all three), but their site has reasonable shipping if you buy in lots that fit in one box (six medium/small bottles).
Melinda's Hot Sauces: They have two that I regularly buy, but I also like another one. All are available on Amazon.
Someone else in the comments mentioned Torchbearer sauces and they are kind of weird. They make some high quality sauces and the price isn't nuts, but for some reason none of their "normal" sauces really stand out to me. Where they excel is in their sauces that no one else makes. The aforementioned Garlic Reaper sauce, Headless Horseradish sauce, and Mushroom Mayhem are good and kinda of weird. None of them will go with everything like you asked for IMO, but they are fun and tasty in the right situations. All of these are on Amazon.
Also my stand out recommendation for if you wanted a super hot sauce (not an every day sauce unless you're nuts) is Hellfire Hot Sauce Fiery Fool. It is so so good, but beware of this sauce. The heat builds up since it has zero pepper extract in it and by the time you decide it's too much, it's too late :)
I have a bunch of others I love, but most of them are no longer on Amazon.
cholula or encona scotch bonnet. aunt mays bajan pepper sauce is really good as well
I bought a variety pack of Melinda's hot sauce, and I've enjoyed the ones between 2-4 out of 5 in spiciness rating. The 1 is too mild to be called hot sauce and the 5 is just excessive for my taste, more suitable for cooking rather than seasoning your individual portion.
Another one I use pretty often is a chili crisp that my dad makes using real Sichuan peppercorns and dried chilies. I guess that's not that helpful for you, but there are some decent ones available at Asian grocery stores. Or if you're feeling frisky you can buy the ingredients and make your own.
I don't use a ton of hot sauce though. I tend to just add spiciness while I'm cooking, but I guess that doesn't work if not everyone eats spicy food.
This is my favourite hot sauce: it’s available at most grocery stores in Canada, not sure how easy it is to get down south:
https://a.co/d/fkszoxi
It’s not the hottest hot sauce, but I’d say the listed 7/10 score is a fair description. The flavour profile is great though — I love it on most things but it’s really great on burgers. The blueberries really come through the heat surprisingly.
Caveat: I actually really enjoy Tobasco on some things so we might have different flavour profiles.
Definitely Cholula, though I do like a drizzle of sriracha on my pizza
I have to preface this with the fact that I'm pretty picky about spiciness. I genuinely really like spiciness, but I very much dislike "spiciness for the sake of spiciness". That said, my favourite hot sauce would probably be "crying thaiger" sriracha. Tabasco, I more or less always disliked.
When I was happy with the flavor but wanted more heat, I stuck to my favorite sauces and just added dried carolina reaper chili powder to the mix. Wicked Reaper was the brand I went with -- they used to have a 3-pack on Amazon that was a good deal, but now it seems they only sell singles.
When I first tried it, I nervously added just the slightest amount to my food on its own, and it wasn't any hotter than the hot sauce I'd been using (El Yucateco Extra Hot - a habanero-based sauce that's a little over 10k SHU). So even though reapers are a little over 2 million SHU, it's you can control how much heat you're adding, and it doesn't change the flavor too much (though it can be noticeable).
It's been a few years, but when I was in my "heat, heat, and more heat" phase, I was literally adding some to every meal I ate.
I have done this as well (especially with Frank's) and it works well. You can just grind up any dried hot pepper to get a similar effect and let you vary the heat level. Just make sure you clean your grinder very well :)
Palo Alto firefighter sauce. I don’t know if you can find it outside the Bay Area though. It was originally made by someone at the Palo Alto fire station, and it was good enough that they decided to start selling it. Way better flavor than any other hot sauce I have had.
If you can find it for a reasonable price near you (<$4/bottle; probably not worth getting shipped), there's very likely something in Mexico Lindo's lineup that you'll enjoy; start with the orange and green, but keep in mind that they should be eaten within a couple months max after opening. They don't go bad, but they're just not nearly as good.
Huy Fong sriracha went to shit after they burned their pepper supplier a few years ago; the true inheritor of that mantle is now Underwood (black label with a gold dragon), which tastes very similar to pre-2017 Huy Fong, for better or for worse--if you didn't try Huy Fond until you recently, you might like Underwood, but it is a step above ketchup in terms of spiciness. It's in some Costco locations now.
If you like Louisiana-style fermented hot sauce, Crystal is definitely my favorite.
Yuacateco (for flavor) and Melinda's (for heat), mentioned by others here, aren't bad. Pretty much all of my other favorites are too local or unusually-found to be helpful suggestions.
...i rarely use hot sauce: instead, my go-to is a perennial chile tepín bush in our backyard, although we also keep a large shaker of crushed dried peppers on-hand for when they're out-of-season...
My go-to when I want
minimal heat: Tabasco / Frank's / White pepper / black pepper.
medium : teaspoon of Buldak - I find it very flavourful rather than just suffering heat. At this quantity it's perfect as medium without pain. (Buldak is the Korean instant noodles with the chickens on the package spitting fire)
top of my bracket: I don't keep anything this hot at home, so my go to is going out for Szechuan or Dongbei region food like this. I enjoy the numbing spice kind of heat in small infrequent trips, their spicy chili oil and the flower peppercorns are my (occasional) jam
There's a local brand here in my country that's basically habanero with maracuya, I don't think it's exported outside the country, but I found a video on Youtube showing how to prepare it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFxyrcs4TQ8
I love the combination of flavors since I like the spiciness of habanero but I found them too sour for my taste, so the maracuya's sweetness balances things off.
Since it's home made it has to be refrigirated, but it goes well with most foods.
I'm going to have to try marucaya hot sauce if I can get ahold of any. I might try making my own; I've got a couple of ghost and habanero plants that are about to yield a few pounds of peppers for processing.
I love mango habanero sauces, but mangos don't love me anymore unless I want actual mouth blisters. Peaches don't do anything for fruit-based hot sauces to my taste. I've seen other fruits used in hot sauces - cherries, orange juice, guava, pineapple, banana, blueberry... But I think that the fragrance and complementary balance of fruit and vegetal flavors can easily turn out wrong with some of these. It's now pumpkin season, and there are pumpkin spice hot sauces... not.
What do you all put hot sauce on? What does "everything" mean in your world?
I'm fairly new to spicy foods and absolutely love the "hot" level in curries at a chain Thai restaurant (which probably only clocks in at a 3 or 4 at an authentic Thai restaurant). I purchased some chili oil (which is more of a paste) from a local Pho place that is fantastic, but it's intense and I can only do like... 1/8 teaspoon in an entire serving of something.
But I don't really know what else to add spice to. Adding this chili oil to Asian cuisine makes sense, but we don't do a lot of homemade Asian food.
I don't really eat eggs. Mexican food also makes sense but it's not something I eat daily.
I'm just genuinely curious what foods you add hot sauce to. Maybe I'm too closed minded.
So I'm in a cold climate, and I'll throw a dab of hot sauce on just about everything when I'm chilled and want the sensation of warmth. Chicken soup? A little Sriracha or neutral habanero sauce. Bowl of rice and eggs? Chile crisp. Beans - chipotle Tabasco. Italian food - dried red pepper flakes or chopped Calabrian peppers. Sandwich - Sriracha or habanero sauce mixed with a little mayo. Salsa Verde goes well on seitan-based dishes. It's easy to tweak the heat level of curries with a neutral habanero sauce. I've even added hot sauce to watermelon salad or grilled pineapple.
Best way to find out is to start experimenting with the foods you eat regularly.
Certain kinds of sandwiches (especially grilled cheese); a lot of rice-based meals (rice & beans, stir fries, rice & eggs); pastas (spaghetti, clam linguini, mac & cheese); potato-based dishes (fried, baked, boil'em, mash'em, stick'em in some hot sauce); fried fish; I don't really eat non-fish meat anymore, but when I did mustard + hot sauce + onions on a hot dog was basically heaven; sometimes for a snack I'll mix mustard and hot sauce and dip dill pickles in it; pizza (both when it's hot and fresh or cold the next day--and if you haven't yet experienced pizza with a hot honey drizzle you're missing out); "leftover casserole" where you toss whatever's left in the fridge a night or two after eating out onto a frying pan; burgers of any variety (real meat or meat substitute); veggie side dishes (corn, green beans, asparagus, pretty much anything).
The only time I don't add (or at least strongly consider adding) hot sauce to a non-sweet foods is when the food has its own delicate flavors that I want to experience--like I probably wouldn't add anything to a light quiche, or hummus, or... I dunno... I can't think of anything else off the top of my head.
This is an excellent response. I'd like to add that I do add hot sauce to my hummus, but that's because I am a hot sauce loving heathen.
I’ve been on the same journey but since I discovered Mr Naga there’s no looking back. Lots of flavour, lots of heat. A jar lasts for months because like I said, lots of heat.
https://mrnaga.com/
I've never had this stuff, I'm definitely going to try it out.
Kaitaia Fire, nz-made from the top of the North Island.
Try and grab this one if you can, it's got a great flavour and a solid heat, but not over the top. https://www.kaitaiafire.com/
Additionally Culley's (also nz-made) has a line of sauces that go from 1-10. Plus they have loads of other sauces, all equally good! https://culleys.co.nz
There isn't any big name hot sauce that I really love, though I will say that we do keep a bottle of Ho-Ya Vietnamese Sriracha as a "default", but if you don't like Sriracha, that's not much help. Other than that I don't really recommend any of the big massively produced hot sauces. At least where I live (Southern Ontario) we're in a glorious time where great hot sauces abound, and are relatively inexpensive.
My go-to that I usually have is a bottle from Sorry Sauce. We've also added in Mojo Peppa Sauce. We currently have a bottle of Sorry's Donnybrook (peach hot sauce) and Mojo's Eclipse White Truffle sauce. Both are fantastic.
It's also relatively easy to make your own hot sauces. You cut the stem and the terminus from peppers you want to use, put them in a very salty brine, weight them down so they stay in the brine, and leave them for a couple of weeks with a fermentation topper (or cheesecloth). Strain, boil, blend and voila: hot sauce. You can add garlic or onion, or cucumber or peaches or mangoes or any number of things to make something really easy and also very delicious.
Might not even be in the right category, or whatever, but my "go-to", for both cooking and just dipping/seasoning stuff, is just a good, spicy picante sauce.
Still haven't found a reliable brand here in the EU (here in Germany, ketchup is understood to be at least medium-spicy...), so I often start with mild-to-medium picante, and spice it up w/jalapeños and chili powder.
I don't really enjoy the original Cholula, but I love their garlic and green versions.
Those 2 are my go to these days, I have retired eating very spicy sauces in recent years. I'm apparently getting old.
Funnily enough I just moved to a new city a few days ago and made friends on day one talking about/testing hot sauce at a bar with some girls. They just bought some of their newly stocked sauces where they work and went all sales person mode. Great icebreaker and wonderful discovery!
Anyways, in this case it's Martin hot pepper sauces, a small French brand that have a wonderful range of sauces with whisky, algae, strawberry, truffle,... There's one for each mood and each dish and they're amazing!
Queen Majesty has some really good offerings including their Scotch bonnet ginger. I'm not sure it'll be quite up to 7 or 8, but it has great flavor and lingers on the back end well.
Most ginger sauces aren't particularly hot. My favorite, though it is slightly different, is Exitium from Burns and McCoy. It's a pineapple ginger sauce that I rate at about a 7 in heat and is super good. Burns and McCoy make some really awesome sauces (my fav is Devorandum), but I didn't mention them in my previous comment because you can't get them on Amazon anymore unless they went back.
I like El Yucateco a lot, especially the green habanero one. But, since I cannot always come across it, I default to Tabasco. I like how Tabasco only has a short list of ingredients and no weird stuff/chemicals.
I'm with you about sriracha. I have to use it very sparingly, and it's never my first choice. I really didn't get the internet sriracha mania from some years back.
Nobody mentioned the TJ's Green Dragon sauce yet - for me this one replaced Sriracha as the default sauce that I put on most things that don't otherwise call for specific sauce, it's super versatile, although pretty mild, but has a nice flavor - especially like it in fried rice of any sort. My second choice is usually Cholula which is pretty versatile also.
Once I got a small bottle of this chili sauce from Hong Kong that was one of my all time favorites - however I am not sure what happened to the company, I think they went through some hard times during covid, and all their internet presence seems to have disappeared, domain expired, social media accounts went dormant, and this sauce seems to be unobtainable now. Would love to find an alternative with a similar flavor profile - most of the other Hong Kong style chili sauces I've tried so far are a bit different, although I am limited in what I can find in the US.
The Encona's, they taste good