Embarrassingly Easy Hot Sauce

You know when you see something and you think, "Doing this must be incredibly hard." And then you sit down and do it and it's so blindingly easy you can't believe it? Such is hot sauce. It's become so wildly popular that there are entire convention dedicated to what may be the easiest thing we've ever put up on A Year From Scratch. Plus, after you get a feeling for how hot the sauces come out, you won't have to fiddle around with finding a pre-made sauce that's just the way you want it. You can make your own.

Take a good look at those ingredients. There are a lot there, so, if you need a minute to take it all in, I understand. But seriously folks. The most important part of this is choosing the peppers. Jalapenos or hot red peppers for a hot sauce, jalapenos and habaneros for a really hot sauce, or whatever hot peppers your farmer's market has for a pot luck hot sauce. Stem and slice the peppers.

If you're a wimp, you can take the seeds and white membrane out first. But let's face it, we're here to make hot sauce, not peppers in vinegar.

Throw the peppers in a saucepan, cover them with vinegar, and salt. Throw the heat to medium to medium-high and let it boil. Once it's started boiling, the peppers will take 15-20 minutes to get soft. Also, if you're using hot peppers, don't lean over the pot while it's boiling. I'm dead serious. It hurts. A lot.

At this point I usually throw the whole thing in the fridge for a week or two. I haven't done a lot of testing, but my feeling is it isn't really necessary, but it's force of habit now. So, either when the peppers cool down, or when it's done resting in the fridge, throw it in a blender and blend until it's all smooth.

You can strain it afterwards if you want a smoother hot sauce. Also, this will keep pretty much forever, especially if you keep it in the fridge, things tend not to grow in vinegar.

Ingredients

6-10 Hot peppers of your favorite variety

White vinegar, enough to cover the sliced peppers

1 teaspoon of salt

Procedure

Stem and slice the peppers.

In a sauce pan, cover the peppers with white vinegar and boil until the peppers become soft.

Let cool, or let sit in fridge for 1-2 weeks and blend.

Comments

[Brian]

Yes, capsaicin dissolved in acid and heated to steam is really not your sinuses' favorite treat, is it?

[Jenni]

I vote for fire roasting those bad boys first. Mmmm--smoky!

[Ben]

Jenni, you have just added something to my todo list. Thank you.