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Hot sauce

Pourable heat: chile, vinegar or citrus, salt, and whatever else the maker swears by. The difference between a good bottle and a great one is what it does to the food, not the number on the label.

Profiles

Know before you buy

  • In Mexican cooking, hot sauce is usually about flavor more than intense heat, and vinegar is used sparingly or not at all.
  • Louisiana-style hot sauce is red chiles (tabasco and cayenne are the most common), vinegar and salt, sometimes with xanthan gum or another thickener.
  • TABASCO Original Red lists three ingredients: aged red peppers, Avery Island salt and distilled vinegar. The pepper mash is aged in white oak barrels for up to three years.
  • Valentina is described as thicker than Tabasco and less vinegary, with more chile flavor. It is made with puya chiles from Jalisco.
  • El Yucateco was founded in Mérida in 1968; Wikipedia, citing trade press, describes its sauces as the first Mexican hot sauces sold in the US, by the mid-1970s.
  • The Yucatán Peninsula is the largest producer of habanero peppers.

Sources: Wikipedia: Hot sauce; TABASCO: Original Red Sauce; Wikipedia: Valentina (hot sauce); Wikipedia: El Yucateco; Wikipedia: Habanero