Hot Sauces - Recommendations for a newbie

Everyone needs this in their lives.

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I tend to just randomly pick bottles so can't really help too much.

Holy **** hot sauce is the nicest that I've had, I really should buy some more

Holy ****

Edit - the swear filters breaks the link, I'm sure you can work it out though.

I'd get a selection pack from a small company. I'm not a big hot food person but went to chilli-fest at Eastor Castle a month ago and it was really good. Came away with a sanpler pack from https://www.devildogsauces.co.uk/shop/gifts

He was a really nice guy and I'd recommend, helped me realise there's more to chillis than getting drunk, having a hot curry and then just making you cry.

Cholula Hot Sauce is a classic brand that’s available in most supermarkets.

I am a big fan of green chilli hot sauces too. Go well with egg and fish based dishes. Green Tabasco is always in my fridge.

There are loads of small artisan brands worth trying. TK max can be good for random American brands. 

All the sauces from this bunch are delicious.

if you happen to be near Glasgow or Edinburgh, Lupe Pintos is definitely worth a visit - huge range of sauces and other delicious goods.

I'm fond of Firelli Italian hot sauce, not too hot, got a bit of flavour to it. Easy to get hold of in supermarkets

worth a visit here if you’re near Leeds, literally thousands of sauces, and the owner is very knowledgable.

+1 green tabasco

Goes on beans on toast, fried egg butties, bean goos, all sorts. The reds are too harsh for my softie palate but the green is tasty.

TK max can be good for random American brands.

This came from there, it's stupidly hot and not a particularly good flavour. It was cheap though 😅

The Rib Man is where it’s at. You want this stuff, very appropriate for here..:

You can't go wrong with a bottle of that Sriracha above. Other srirachas  are a poor imitation imo.  It's a favourite for being applied to pasta and chilli here as you can be quite generous and it's got this nice tangy, salty thing.

This I quite liked, caution advised on portion sizes 😉

https://www.cottagedelight.co.uk/product/flamin-naga-chilli-sauce/

Habanero and chocolate is a good combination

I'm also partial to the green (jalapeno) Tabasco and the Chipotle one.

Oh and sweet chilli sauce on cheesy chips. 🙂

If you fancy something hotter, possibly life/threateningly so

Dave’s Insanity Sauce - literally two small drips is all you need to fire up a meal. My current bottle went out of date seven years ago despite being used regularly - and it’s still half full.

I love a hot sauce but have recently become obsessed (to the point of eating out of the jar with a spoon) with Lao Gan Ma crispy chilli in oil.

Seems I'm not alone:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2022/nov/05/chinas-hottest-woman-the-driving-force-behind-crunchy-chilli-sensation-lao-gan-ma

I went through the macho phase of seeking out ever hottter stuff but now actually look for options that actyually taste good rather than just trying to blow your arse off.

To this end I'm a big fan of the Marie Sharps stuff from Belize. They do some absolute ragers like the Red Hornet but the normal 'smoked' one is fantastic on a burito or in a chilli, I tend to add a little bit to my home made salsa as well.

I've travelled through Trinidad a fair bit, and this is pretty good. It's got some intense heat, but a great flavour too. Most Caribbean sauces are just too hot for my gentle european tastebuds!

I do like the habanero flavour.

But for an everyday sauce, for when I don't want to sweat out (doesn't take much), Stokes Chilli Ketchup is fantastic... Or alternatively, just get some ridiculously hot sauce and mix a couple of drips with a generous dollup of your favourite tomato ketchup - but the Stokes takes the guesswork out and means I don't (and am well known for doing so) end up saying "oh I think I've put too much chilli sauce on again" while wiping sweat from brow.

As above, Sriracha is my go-to.  It's flavour over raw heat and comes in big bottles, it's perfect for drizzling over pizza.

Dave’s Insanity Sauce – literally two small drips is all you need to fire up a meal. My current bottle went out of date seven years ago despite being used regularly – and it’s still half full.

Yup, same.  It's hard to overstate just how little you need, it's hot as hell but has a powerful flavour.

On Nando's, my favourite is the extra hot.  I think it tastes nicer than the regular hot, there's more to it.  They do an extra extra hot in a black-labelled bottle but it's just heat for the sake of bragging rights, it's tastes of nothing else.

I highly recommend East coast chilli Co.

They do selection boxes of 5 large or small bottles and do a well thought out range of flavours..

https://www.eastcoastchillicompany.co.uk/product/chilli-sauce-60ml-box-gift-set/

Mahi do some interesting mild and medium ones too, along with a bunch of other sauces

https://saucymahi.co/collections/al

Funnily enough they do a green habenaro that I really enjoyed too!

I like to keep a selection of different ones!

https://imgbox.com/8K3wb4OE

For stuff readily available from supermarkets... I'll add franks red hot to the list... Has a nice citrus zing to it and its not as hot as the name suggests... Definitely more medium/mild

https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/264147746

Deffinatly try to go for flavor over heat... Especially to begin with... I find some of the really hot ones are just super hot for the sake of it and don't realy have much going on in the taste department.

One tip.. Of you do end up with something too hot for comfort, you can use it by adding it to mayo so make a spicy mayo it really clams the heat down and is great for dipping chips or chicken strips etc.

Good thread.. A few new ideas for me on here too!

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My sister bought me this as a joke but it's actually very tasty.

Ignore all of the above, Tabasco for soup, Encona original for dipping ie fry ups or mixed with red/brown sauce.
It was a sad day when sriracha turned up and pushed the proper chilli sauces off the coop shelves, just look at all the ingredients.
So to recap:
Tabasco red
Encona std
Nando’s should be banned entirely for making people think putting cayenne and paprika on roast potatoes or chips is innovative or exciting as opposed to standard procedure.
The sauce with the wooden lid is just red water in a fancy hat.

I agree with @binners The Rib Man’s sauces are excellent.

a very nice change from vinegary watery hot sauces as they are thick with richly flavored chilli goodness. They range from spicy to OMG as they go from Holy F£&@ through Christ on a Bike, and Holy Mother of God to Judas it’s Scary Hot.

buy several bottles to make the most of The Rib Man’s shipping charges.
https://theribman.co.uk/collections/sauces

edit Dave’s Insanity Sauce was an early one I had. As folks have said it lasts way beyond its best before date and really adds flavour and heat with a few drops. Dave’s ghost pepper sauce wasn’t as good imo.

I'm not madly into hot sauces but have tried a few from here and they were all good: https://www.eatenalive.co.uk/collections/hot-sauce

Like a Sriracha favourite Co for spicy has to be Mr Vikki's.

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Remember newbs, hot on the way in, hot on the way out...

Windmill, Delish or Aunt Mays Bajan sauce in that order.     I didn’t known until this morning each was available from Amazon, we always have a Bottle of the yellow Delish on the go.

https://lizzydavis.com/travel-destinations/barbados/best-bajan-hot-pepper-sauce/

I quite like red Tabasco on my poached eggs and might give the green one a go after the prior recommendation.

I like the Encona Carolina Reaper sauce - I know it's a bit of a mass-market brand, so not ideal for some, but it's easy to get hold of and reliable. Sriracha is of course another reliable staple.

But yeah, try and avoid the sauces that are all heat and no flavour. I tried a Portuguese one a while back which claimed to be the hottest sauce in the world. No idea if it is, but it was foul with a real chemical aftertaste.

Big fan of all Mr Vikkis stuff. https://www.mrvikkis.co.uk , especially his Urban Ketchup. Lovely.

For a lovely flavour with sensible heat Franks Red Hot Original is bloody lovely.

For adding massive amounts of heat into any dish Dave's Ultimate Insanity. Like the previous poster, my bottle must be 5 years old and still going strong despite being used regularly.

Thanks for the recommendations!

Will have a look at some of the sampler packs. Might keep an eye out for a smaller scirracha bottle as one of the normal bottles caused a fridge incident of which we must never speak again.

Will probably have the aficionados up in arms, but I'm a fan of Franks

Not too hot that it overpowers your food (usually chicken wings), but a good old kick and tastes nice too (IMO)

Here to agree with @hatter, Marie Sharp's are amazing. The smoky one is my favourite so far. https://www.hotsauceemporium.co.uk/product/marie-sharps-smokin-marie/

but my additions of choice at the moment are either this paste https://belazu.com/shop-all/smoked-chilli-harissa/ or (not spicy, but amazing flavour) https://www.blackgarlic.co.uk/product-page/black-garlic-paste-100-g

claimed to be the hottest sauce in the world. No idea if it is, but it was foul with a real chemical aftertaste.

A lot of the more gimmicky really hot one's are made with chilli extract rather than the pulped fruit which is a bit wrong if you ask me... Aside from from being inedible it's cheating as it's not a proper sauce IMO.

Lots of love for Sriracha on here but I can't say I'm really a fan... Really you just have to try a veriety to find out what you like.

Here to agree with @hatter, Marie Sharp’s are amazing. The smoky one is my favourite so far. https://www.hotsauceemporium.co.uk/product/marie-sharps-smokin-marie/

Thirded, Marie Sharp's are excellent - and more widely available than they used to be. Used to only be available in Belize and (for some reason) Japan, weirdly.

If you're in Ireland, Mic's is a fabulous Wicklow company, does a huge range, and their Inferno Lite is about the right level for "lash it on everything"; Inferno is good for a special treat. Their barbecue sauce is absolutely top notch too.
https://www.micschilli.com/webstore/inferno-sauce-lite

Lots of love for Sriracha on here but I can’t say I’m really a fan…

It's a very use case thing. on any kind of asian food it's excellent, I wouldn't put it in a burrito or a chilli though.

It does work rather well on Pizza, strangely enough.

Used to only be available in Belize and (for some reason) Japan, weirdly.

Yes, I used to have to jump through all sorts of hoops to get them into the UK, Hot Headz import them now so it's got  a bit easier although some of my favs are only in stock sporadically.

For something that doesn't just taste of sharp hit vinegar, this is great with almost anything.

https://ayepickled.com/products/kimchi-hot-sauce

My link above is broken this one should work.. https://saucymahi.co/collections/all

The green savina habenoro, and red savina habinaro are nice.

If you really catch the bug you can make your own!

Here's one me and a friend did, You can pretty much freestyle it with chilli sauce really... it turned out really nice!

Ingredients:

Bell peppers
Onions
Big red mild chillies
Hot green 'finger' chillis from asian supermarket (might be birdseye chillies, not sure)
Onions
Black pepper
White vinigar
Salt
Lime juice
Brown sugar
Black rum
Paprika
Rice bran oil
Lots of garlic
Maple syrup

Whizz it all up in a pan to your prefered consistency and stew it for a bit balancing the flavours as you go - lemon and lime adds a citrusy tang, but if it gets too much you can calm it down by adding sugar or syrup/honey, or balance it vica-versa. etc.

I tend to make chilli sauce more on the mild/medium heat side of things so it's more versatile. You can always add more chilli if you want, but if it's weapons grade 'hot' to start with, it's kinda limiting.

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just look at all the ingredients.

Ooh, I know this one. Does it contain "chemicals"?

I just looked at the bottle in the cupboard.  There's nothing in it I don't recognise.

Remember newbs, hot on the way in, hot on the way out…

Go overboard with something like Dave's Insanity Sauce and you'll be on Grindr tomorrow looking for a snowman.

If you really catch the bug you can make your own!

I've tried a few times.  The results weren't bad per se but I've yet to come anywhere near close to perfecting it.  Roasting the veg first makes a big difference to flavour.

One time I acquired some bhut jolokia (ghost pepper) from a friend who'd either grown or bought too many.  The best thing about it was the name I came up with, "Pain In The Bhut."  I was scared of over-using them so went too far the other way and made a fairly pleasant barbeque-adjacent dipping sauce rather than the napalm I was expecting.

I grow a lot of chillies, mainly because i love the variety, different heats and flavours, but this is a recipe i make every year without fail.

Mango, pineapple and scotch bonnet sauce

https://www.greatbritishchefs.com/recipes/scotch-bonnet-pineapple-mango-hot-sauce-recipe

Scotch bonnets have a fruity flavour anyway, and this is a big fruit bomb of a sauce.

I prefer just chopping fresh peppers and using as a garnish. Although that may just be because of the time I was in Cayenne wanting to buy a few habaneros from the market stall, for that night's dinner, and they only sold them by the 1kg.  We tended to make everything medium hot and then let everyone garnish with fresh habs to their preferred heat and taste.  A kilo of fresh habs goes a long way!

Can't beat the flavours of freshly chopped peppers.

I need to grow some more of the lemon drop peppers. Fantastic in salads, sarnies, etc. and not super hot.

I prefer just chopping fresh peppers and using as a garnish.

Put the chillies in the curry AND on the curry! this is the way!

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pictonroad

Full Member

I love a hot sauce but have recently become obsessed (to the point of eating out of the jar with a spoon) with Lao Gan Ma crispy chilli in oil.

We love this at home! I have to ration the other half! Can only buy 2 jars at a time at the Asian food shop too. It's so good in stir fry and noodles dishes or almost anything tbf. Have to be a bit careful though as it's oil to mind the calorie count.

Good old Tobasco is nice. Great splashed on a hard boiled egg.

One thing to note about hot sauces, they do lose a bit of their heat over time. So better guzzle them down whilst they're hot.

Ugh, hot sauce is an area of cuisine ruined by macho idiots.  I don't want my food to hurt, and I don't care who knows that - I just like the taste of chillies.

My favourite supermarket hot sauce is Cholua because I also don't like the taste of vinegar unless it's on chips; and Tabasco seems to taste only of vinegar.

No vinegar on chips? What! You philistine 🫣😎😄

He said the opposite...?

So what do you all use the sauce on? Is it a dipping sauce, put it into the cooking process, drizzle over chicken etc???

All of the above?

Depends on the sauce really.  As a dipping sauce I'd want essentially a spicy ketchup; at Nandos, a 50:50 mix of Extra Hot and ketchup is far better than anything they offer on its own.  Tabasco is good as a quick dash in tomato soup.  The nuclear option like Dave's is invaluable as an ingredient when making a chilli con/non carne.  Sriracha is a good drizzle as I said earlier, a pizza isn't right without a couple of swirls.  A generic all-rounder hot sauce like Frank's or Encona is a decent topping for burgers (and I presume wings etc).

Tabasco seems to taste only of vinegar.

Making it a fabulous substitute for vinegar on chips 🤤

Ugh, hot sauce is an area of cuisine ruined by macho idiots. I don’t want my food to hurt, and I don’t care who knows that – I just like the taste of chillies.

Agree 100%...too much chilli will easily overpower and ruin the flavours of any given dish. Heat aside some chillies are actually really tasty.

It's just an ingredient/spice like any other, but it is a really good one when used appropriatly... it needs to balance and be appropriate for the dish.

If you cant taste the food for the hotness, then you're doing it wrong...

There is a lot of macho culture around the hotter ones, but it's just that...

A good examlple is the carolina reaper with honey and fermented soy from ECCC...

Wonderfully tasty but it blows my brains out if I use it as a dipping sauce...it's a superb addition to many chinese or thai style dishes though, if used in 'moderation'.

Even raw scotch bonnets have a lovely fresh 'green' flavour for want of a better word...but they are too hot for me to eat whole ones.

How the hell people can eat things like nagas and trinidad scorpions is beyond me, it's just bravado/sadomasochism.

Ugh, hot sauce is an area of cuisine ruined by macho idiots.

I'm not necessarily recommending you try these but having just recently finished this little lot off that I got for father's day last year I suspect another shipment is due to arrive shortly....

https://www.orrissandson.com/shop

^ not mad hot but very tasty.

£6 for 125ml? Lol...

A big +1 for Mr Vikkis. His hot sauce is a staple, hot enough but very tasty. I got a selection hamper with some pickles for Christmas, a little goes a long way!

+1 green tabasco

Goes on beans on toast, fried egg butties, bean goos, all sorts. The reds are too harsh for my softie palate but the green is tasty.

Have you tried the chipotle one?

It's amazing. I've bought about 10 of them from Ocado as I was struggling to find more when I ran out.