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.
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.
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.
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.
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 :')
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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