All of the recipes are variations of the base recipe below
Ingredients
- Fresh chiles
- Vegetable (for structure and flavor) – carrots. or beets typically
- Onion – large white or yellow
- Garlic
- Vinegar – White or Apple Cider
- Water
- Salt
- Xanthan Gum – binds it, keeps it from separating
- Optional Spices (eg cumin)
- Optional Fruit (eg Lime, Pineapple)
- Optional Dried Chipotle, Poblano, etc chiles
Add vegetables, chopped onion, whole peeled garlic, and salt to pot of water. Boil until vegetables are soft and ready for processing
Chop the peppers
Add peppers to the Vitamix (maybe food processor? Vitamix allows you to do large batches). Strain the vegetables, onion, and garlic out and into the Vitamix.
Using water from the boil pot, add equal parts boil water and vinegar to the Vitamix.
Blend until smooth
Transfer back to boil pot(s) and bring to boil. Lower temp and simmer for 30+ minutes
Add Xanthan Gum to the pot, whisking in slowly – whisk until no lumps and you have the desired consistency
Bottle while the saue is hot, leave the filled bottle upside down for a while to seal the top
This should result in a sauce with PH 3.5 or so which is ideal for a stable long shelf life. After opening I usually keep them in the fridge, but they tolerate being out on the counter as well, in my experience
New in 2022, I started experimenting with Fermented Hot Sauces. It has been an interesting experience and the flavors are noticeably different. I like them a lot.
Fermented recipe template:
Chop chile peppers, onion, garlic and any vegetables or fruit you want to add for flavors.
Pack into the fermenting jar.
Layer of cabbage leaf, with a fermentation weight on top #keeps the stuff you’re fermenting below the surface, to maintain an anaerobic state necessary to avoid bad guys and promote the good guys. Off-gassing from the fermentation process pushes oxygen out through the lid (must use a fermentation lid to avoid explosions).
Fill with a brine solution of 3.5% (ratio of 35g salt to 1L distilled water works).
Leave 1/2-1″ below the lid and let sit for 2-6 or more weeks (Tabasco is fermented for 3 years).
When done, strain the brine out and put fermented mass in the blender.
Add either water or the brine, blend.
Move to a pot, bring to a boil and simmer for at least 25m to stop the fermentation process. This is necessary to avoid the bottles exploding from pressure created by the fermentation process.
Xanthan gum as needed to bind, thicken.
Bottle.