Which hot sauce for which dish

How this works: every pick below is either a use the maker names for its own product, or a chile a named cook uses in that dish. We haven’t staged a tasting panel and we won’t pretend we did. Where nothing on our shelves fits, we say so.

Tacos

Cholula’s maker lists tacos, fish tacos, carne asada, fajitas and enchiladas among its uses.¹ Valentina belongs on the same plate: Mexico News Daily runs its uses from shrimp tacos to tostadas and flautas.³ They are different sauces, though: Valentina is built on puya chiles, Cholula on árbol and piquín with spices.^2,1 The full breakdown is in Valentina vs Cholula vs Tapatío.

Eggs and huevos rancheros

Huevos rancheros are fried eggs on tortillas under a spicy salsa of tomatoes, chiles and onion. An 1845 Mexican cookbook made the red version with toasted pasilla and ancho chiles.⁸ So if you are making the salsa from scratch, start with pasilla and ancho. From a bottle, Cholula’s maker names both eggs and huevos rancheros, and Simply Organic suggests its chili powder for eggs.^1,16

Birria

Birria is not a bottled-sauce dish. It is meat (mainly goat, beef or lamb) marinated in an adobo of vinegar, dried chiles, garlic, herbs and spices, then cooked in a broth, the consomé.⁹ The chiles are the sauce. Pati Jinich’s Jalisco-style birria uses four: ancho, guajillo, cascabel and morita chipotle, served in tacos with corn tortillas, onion, cilantro and lime.¹⁰ In the comments she suggests a bit of pasilla or dried chipotle if you can’t find cascabel.¹⁰ Every one of them is profiled in our dried chile field guide.

Pizza

Two directions. Shaker: Simply Organic suggests its crushed red pepper as a sprinkle-on for pizza.¹⁵ Bottle: Cholula’s maker names pizza,¹ and Mexico News Daily puts Valentina on it too.³

Wings

Classic Buffalo wing sauce is a cayenne-based hot sauce blended with melted butter and vinegar—the original recipe at the Anchor Bar in Buffalo, New York in 1964 used Frank’s RedHot.^11,12 Frank’s is a mild cayenne sauce built to be mixed into sauces as much as poured: short ingredient list (cayenne, vinegar, water, salt, garlic powder), mild enough to use in large amounts. Cholula’s maker also lists wings among its uses.¹

Chips, fruit and street snacks

This is Valentina’s home turf. Its thicker body sticks to fries and chips better than most vinegar-based sauces, and in Mexico it is the go-to for chicharrones and fruit-cup stands.⁴ For a dry hit, Tajín pitches its seasoning for fruits, vegetables and snacks,¹³ and Rancho Gordo suggests its Stardust powder on fresh fruit, raw vegetables and popcorn.¹⁴

Bloody Marys and micheladas

Tapatío’s maker suggests both drinks.⁵ Tabasco and Cholula each list the Bloody Mary,^6,1 and Cholula goes as far as margaritas.¹ For the rim, Rancho Gordo pitches Stardust for cocktail glasses.¹⁴

Oysters and seafood

Tabasco’s maker suggests it on oysters on the half shell and in jambalaya.⁶ Simply Organic lists shellfish among uses for its chili powder.¹⁶

Chili, soups and stews

Marie Sharp’s suggests its Original Hot habanero sauce for soups and stews.⁷ For the pot itself, Simply Organic lists chili and stews for its chili powder and chili and barbecue for its chipotle powder.^16,17 Want to go whole-pod? Thick-fleshed chipotles are usually used in slow-cooked dishes; see the smoke section of the field guide.¹⁸