Tapatío
Delicious sauce, but I personally wouldn’t consider that hot at all.
This was my go-to for a while. I still keep this one on hand, but I recently have been defaulting to Hoff Sauce more recently. If you see it for sale, I recommend you give it a try.
I love all kinds of hot sauce (sate/sambal is my #1. Does that count as sauce? It’s more a paste). But my widespread you can find this anywhere go-to for eggs and potatoes is good ol’ Tapatio. I’ll take Valentina’s too, since it’s so similar.
Good ol’ Sriracha because of its versatility. It goes well with so many foods.
Hmm it’s the sweetness that makes it not versatile for me. I love it in pho though!
I’ve tried a few different brands of sriracha, and there were only like two that I liked. The others had more sweetness that I didn’t like.
Pretty fond of Nandos Garlic sauce, but theres also
- Djablo Power Jab (filipino - earthy and HOT)
- Burns & Mccoy - Mezcaline (warm and fantastic on a taco, not crazy hot, very flavorful)
My wife got me a bottle of Da Bomb as a joke for Valentine’s and I’ve been working through that for over a year.
I was just gifted a whole season of hot ones sauces. Came with da bomb evolution and havent tried it yet
It’s definitely the worst of all of them. Zero redeeming features.
I’ve had da bomb beyond insanity before so im curious how i react to this one.
Its an experience, not a flavour.
Frank’s RedHot
I’m a pepper head, but for some dishes, that cayenne vinegar is a necessary flavor component.
I like Franks in wing sauce but prefer Cholula for pretty much anything else.
Cholula with mayo and ketchup makes a great fry sauce.
That’s my favorite on most foods. For Mexican I go with Valentina and for Asian food I go with Sriracha
Do you….
put that shit on everything?
You bet your ass I do
I’m partial to the Dave’s Carolina Reaper sauce.
If I’m in a different mood the El Yucateco habanero sauce has great flavor.
Gochujang for cooking. Usually the T. UP imported stuff from Korea.
Gochujang chicken with rice and veggies in a bowl has become a default “lazy workday dish” at our place.
I love pretty much anything by Melinda’s
I recently got a bottle of Melinda’s Garlic & Habanero sauce. It might be my favorite hot sauce that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg.
Was coming to praise the Ghost Pepper Wing Sauce. It’s so good on and in so many things, but especially a chicken sandwich from a local joint we go to on Wednesdays. I look forward to that every week.
While I have a few in the medium, and very hot categories, what I really use a lot of is a relatively mild green sauce. I like to be able to add a lot flavor without making something crazy hot. I used to use Tabasco green, later upgraded to Cholula green, but my favorite these days is Callahan’s Poblano green chili sauce. The Bronx Greenmarket is really good too.
I like High River Rogue. Not super hot (relatively speaking), somewhat sweet, fruity. I like it because it’s flavorful and an unexpected twist on what’s usually just a vinegar-plus-angry-pepper shelf.
Depends what I’m eating! Different heats for different meats, y’know?
Here in Chicago there a company called Coop Hot Sauce that makes an amazing array of sauces seasonally. Their “Unicorn Tears” is a good all-purpose hotsauce featuring fermented seranno. They had one two years ago made with habanero and pepitas that was amazing on anything with cheese.
For big brands, Yucateco is very good. Their green habanero is good in chicken soup or in mac’n’cheese. The black label aged habanero is fire on fried chicken or added to salad dressings. The ‘Caribbean’ roasted habanero is closest to the fresh roasted habanero salsas that the better restaurants on the West Side make in house.
With East and Southeast Asian dishes, sambal oeleck is tops. I have a soft spot for hot mustard with egg rolls, though.
- Blair’s death sauce: quite spicy and a really nice habanero flavour
- Mad dog 357: VERY spicy. Great for when you just need to pump the spice level. One drop will make your dish spicy, two drops very spicy, three drops sweating and hiccups
Depends on the application. Sriracha is good on hard boiled eggs, but Texas Pete is better on Mac and cheese.
Mahi Bhut Jolokia sauce is my go to.
Home made version of Marie Sharp’s with more smoke.
There’s a smoked habanero they put out at one point-- not sure if it was a limited run or not but it had a pretty decent smoke taste
Easier for me to just make a half gallon at a time an jar it up.
Crystal and Sambal, depending on the dish. Tabasco if it’s gumbo or soup or whatever but Tabasco is more concentrated and I like it best as an ingredient than as a sauce.
Good point about Tabasco.