Hot Sauce at Home (Fake Sriracha)

The world divides into two kinds of people: those who must have Huy Fong Sriracha Sauce with every meal, and those who think people like us are lunatics .

Well, pity us Sriracha lovers, for the rooster has fled the coop. And nobody knows when the bird will return.

More accurately, Huy Fong is blaming shortages of their beloved product on global warming, which has impacted their ability to acquire adequate amounts of hot peppers. Ergo, no Sriracha sauce. Market shelves are bare. People have resorted to stealing bottles from restaurants (!). Meanwhile, at this writing–July 13, 2023–two 17 ounce bottles of Huy Fong Sriracha Sauce will cost you $85.60 at Walmart.

 

Well, I thought to myself, there’s always shatta, the Middle Eastern answer to Sriracha. Made from hot red or green peppers, vinegar, and nothing else, shatta is that rare commercial product that is truly spicy.

Berkeley Bowl Market devotes an entire aisle to commercial hot sauce, which is rather like barbecue sauce: commercial products are bottled in a cacophony of colorful labels, often using extreme fonts, boasting even more extreme ingredients.

Nothing fancy.

True spice heads eschew all this frippery. We want heat, and we want it from peppers. The rest, to quote the music writer Alex Ross wildly out of context, is noise. So it was the many, many bottle boasting their heat indices, secret recipes, and assurances their product would blow away body parts on contact sat untouched while the shatta, a simple, unassuming product edging shoppers from hot sauce into Middle Eastern foods, was clean sold out.

I did not photograph this.

So it was I found myself forced to create a substitute hot sauce at home. Fortunately it is summertime, and fresh peppers may be found locally.

What follows is not an attempt to replicate Sriracha. Rather, it is an attempt to create a hot sauce to tide me–and my fellow hot sauce lovers–over until the real thing returns.

Whenever that may be.

—

A few notes.

My hot sauce uses a blend of red or yellow bell pepper, jalapeno pepper, and Scotch Bonnet pepper. Jalapenos and Scotch Bonnets are extremely hot, so wear gloves when handling them. Don’t touch your eyes, face, lips, or other sensitive areas while handling them. It’s easy to forget what you’re doing, and believe me, we all do it once. Hot soapy water is your friend. If you irritate your eyes, rinse repeatedly with cool water.

Hot peppers give off fumes while cooking. Said fumes can cause coughing and sneezing. Open your windows and run your oven’s exhaust fan, if you have one (or it works; mine does not.).

Did you really want a photo of me coughing and sneezing? I didn’t think so.

I did not ferment the peppers, because fermenting takes time I didn’t have. I need hot sauce now.

When the models look like this, all you do is show up.

If you do sample peppers or sauce and find yourself unhappily wishing for a fire extinguisher, rice, not water, is the fastest way to calm the flames.

A jam funnel, pictured below, helps transfer sauces, jams, and other preserves from pan to jar.

A word about the final color of your hot sauce. Red bell peppers will give you a lovely orange red result, like this:

Yellow bells give a less aesthetic result, but taste just as good. Do not be deterred.

Use your hot sauce anywhere you would use Huy Fong Sriracha: on eggs, sandwiches, rice, to perk up dips, on meats. Mix it with sour cream and dip chips into it. If this makes you nervous, dip vegetables into it instead, and call it healthy.