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Want to spice up your food? Make your own hot sauce at home

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If you like spice, finding the perfect balance of heat and flavor creates a unique cooking challenge. There’s nothing quite like the excitement of wrestling with the Scoville scale, especially if you’ve made your own custom hot sauce blend.

Hot food is fun and healthy if used moderately. Capsaicin, the spicy component in chili peppers, can reduce inflammation and harmful cholesterol, which reduces the risk of heart attack and stroke. Capsaicin jumpstarts your metabolism as well, and studies have shown it has anti-carcinogenic properties and can lower blood pressure.

While the benefits of spicy food are plentiful, hot sauce can add to your grocery bills, particularly if you prefer boutique and high-end brands. Thankfully, you can make your own at home. Not only does this save you money, it broadens your culinary palette.

Shop this article: KitchenAid 3.5 Cup Food ChopperFarm to Table Chinois Set and Farberware Nonreactive Boiling Pot

Choose your style

There are more hot sauces under the sun than we can count. We can’t list them all here, but we’ll list some of the more popular varieties below to help you get started.

Generally speaking, hot sauces contain chili peppers, an acid like vinegar or lemon/lime juice, salt, and aromatics like carrots or onions. Certain varieties add grilled fruit like pineapple or mango for sweetness, while others add tomatoes and curry spices for depth. The possibilities are nearly endless, and that’s part of the fun. Here are some of our favorite styles.

Choose your heat level

The hotness of your sauce can be tweaked and tailored by a myriad of factors, including the pepper types, how diluted they are, and the fruit/sugar content of the sauce. We’ll list the major pepper categories below, but remember that even an extremely hot chili can be used in a low-heat sauce if done correctly.

How to make your own hot sauce

Hot sauce recipes vary, but these are the fundamental steps you’ll take in almost all of them. If you’re grilling vegetables or fruit for your sauce, do it beforehand.

Tips for making your own hot sauce

The DIY hot sauce shopping list

Outside of the produce, spices, and additives themselves, here are the tools you’ll need to make DIY hot sauce.

KitchenAid 3.5-Cup Food Chopper

A food processor to mix and liquify your hot sauce. Models with liquid basins allow you to easily incorporate ingredients like vinegar, water, and even fruit juice. 

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Farm to Table Chinois Set

A chinois strainer can assist you in removing pepper pulp, seeds, and clumps from your hot sauce. If you aim to make a viscous, Tabasco-esque sauce, a strainer is a must. 

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Farberware Nonreactive Boiling Pot

A nonreactive boiling pot to soften your peppers and blend the flavors. Remember to boil your mixture to 185 degrees Fahrenheit before bottling.

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North Mountain Supply Bottles 

Bottles or jars to store and preserve your hot sauce over time. If you’re making an extremely hot sauce, consider bottles with narrow openings so you can apply conservatively. 

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Gloves

Thick, reusable gloves for hot peppers. Chilis at the upper end of the Scoville scale contain oils that can burn bare skin, even in small amounts. Extremely hot peppers such as the ghost pepper can even burn through thin, disposable latex gloves.

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Andrew Hard is a writer for BestReviews. BestReviews is a product review company with a singular mission: to help simplify your purchasing decisions and save you time and money.

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