Home-Made Hot Sauce

Since I am laid off from my job for a week or so I decided it was time to make a batch of hot sauce. My ingredient list varies depending on what fresh veggies are available when I go to the store. The only thing I decided not to use fresh was tomatoes as they were $2.85 a pound and not very appealing. This time I used the following:

Ingredients

• Garlic – 3 whole cloves
• 2 cans of tomato chunks
• 3 kinds of fresh hot peppers – “green” “red” and Serrano. There was no variety name on the sticker so I have no clue as to exactly what kind of pepper the reds and greens are.
• 2 kinds of onions – Mayan sweet and Green.
• Fancy red wine vinegar-16 ounces
• 2 tablespoons Italian seasoning
• ¾ cup sea salt
• ¾ cup sugar

Method

I had already started to cut up the green onions when I decided to photograph this operation. After they are coarsely chopped, the stuff goes into the blue pot to the left of the microwave.

Now we have garlic!

Lots of smelly garlic

Once the garlic is broken down into the individual sections, that little rubber tube works great for stripping off the husks. Now it is coarsely chopped and headed for the pot.

One half of a big ass onion!

Coarsely chop everything

If anyone is wondering why I removed the seeds, they can be very hard on your guts.

Here is the blender full of some of the ingredients. This is the stage where you add the vinegar and the tomatoes.

BUZZZZZZZZZ

BBBUUUZZZZZZZ

All done. This was the third blender full of veggie goodness.

Here is the cook pot with the sauce in it along with the rest of the dry ingredients.

Cook on low heat for 2-2.5 hours checking frequently to make sure it does not run dry or boil over. There should be plenty of liquid to avoid that so it isn’t much of a worry. However, DO NOT put your face near a steaming pot of this as the oils from the peppers will mix with the steam. If you get this in your eyes, you will be most unhappy. Here is the cooked goodness.

Now we have to prep the jars. This is the correct way to do this and doing it another way can result in contamination. The canning jars are cleaned and then boiled for 5 minutes in this special pot. I picked this one up at a garage sale for $1.

Here are the cleaned and boiled jars and lids.

And here are 6 pints of the best hot sauce around.

Now I will let this cure for a week or so before starting to use it. This is a medium-hot heat hot sauce that is great on just about anything. I have no interest in an “asses of fire” sauce. It would be easy enough to change the heat in either direction by adding hotter peppers or milder ones. The flavor will change over time and each jar tastes a little different as it cures. A wide range of flavors can be obtained by using different vinegars and even wine along with different kinds of peppers.