Green Pepper Hot Sauce

I grew up not being a spicy fan. My dad would offer a few dollars in exchange for us kids to tolerate a jalapeño for a minute or two. As most kids do, I loathed spicy foods, and could never make it. And for years after, I avoided jalapeños. Whether it was the pickled version or the spice itself, I didn't know. I didn't care, either. I just would say, "No jalapeños," and be done with it.

For years, I was close with someone obsessed with peppers and hot sauce, even going so far as to order peppers on pizza and put hot sauce on just about everything. It took years for me to soften my dislike, but eventually I began sprinkling pickled peppers on nachos. That turned into fresh jalapenos. And suddenly, one day, I found myself eating a habañero soaked in ghost pepper oil, and obsessed with buffalo sauce. Don't let anyone tell you that people don't change, my friend.

In recent months, I've started a sizeable garden in my yard. Though not a pro gardener by any stretch of the word, I've managed to muster up some healthy pepper plants, winding up with several serranos, a Thai chili, ghost pepper, and jalapeño plants. I've been picking the serranos and Thai peppers as fast as they grow, and between cooking, freezing, or giving them away, I've been mostly able to keep up. But recently I wound up with quite a few of the Thai peppers, and decided to try something to use em up. 

It worked out well that someone with a penchant for hot peppers had a birthday coming up. Abundance of peppers, a father in love with hot sauce.. well, I'm sure you can figure it out.

I did try homemade hot sauce some time ago, cooking the peppers in vinegar on the stove. That's the quick method, but this time, I had some time to prepare and decided to go the slower route of fermenting the peppers. The advice provided on the site I reference was to do a ratio of 3:1, with sweet bell peppers being the majority of the sauce. This keeps the sauce from being unbearably hot.

Now, in my case, I picked just about everything current off the serrano and Thai chili plants and prepped them for the sauce. I had a hefty pile of hot peppers and one sweet pepper in the mix.

After cutting the stems off, I cut the sweet pepper into chunks and the smaller peppers in halves and thirds. I also chopped a few garlic cloves and added them in. All of it went into a large quart jar.

I boiled some water and added salt, heating it until it was dissolved. In my case, I used pink Himalayan sea salt, so the water had a slightly pink tint. I let the water cool a bit, then poured the water over the peppers. To prevent the peppers from floating to the top, I used a little weight; a bag filled with water prevented the peppers from touching the air.

And then came the easy part: leaving it alone. So much work! The recipe I looked at called for letting the peppers ferment in the brine for 5-7 days, until the water got cloudy. By day 4, the water was foggy and the peppers had darkened in color a bit. I decided the sauce was ready to go.

You can see the color had faded into a darker, more pickled looking green.

The next step was blending the peppers into a sauce. I used a Ninja blender, but a food processor works too. I got it to a fairly thin consistency, but there were still some visible pepper pieces; this was the consistency I was happy with, but obviously to thin more, just keep on blendin'. I added in some apple cider vinegar, a little bit of honey, and some xanthum gun (which keeps it all from separating).

Hottttttttt.

Making burrito bowls was obviously the next step; one can't rightly enjoy hot sauce without the right meal to enjoy it on. Beef, cauliflower rice, zucchini, black beans....and of course, hot sauce.

I dove into this recipe head first, throwing tons of these Thai chilies in there and figuring I'd deal with the heat later. Of course, after beginning the fermentation process, I ever so lately checked the Scoville rating of the peppers I'd chosen. Well, turns out Thai chilies in general are around 50,000-100,000 units. For reference, jalapeños are 2,500-8,000 units. So, as you can imagine, I was a little concerned with what kind of food demon I may have created, but also know that spicy hot sauce can be a pretty fun challenge.

When it came time to jar the sauce, I strongly considered heating and sealing the jar, however I also didn't want to risk my first time jarring attempt ruining my recipe. Now, I have heard that putting hot sauce in the fridge can take away the heat, but for freshness and food safety sake, I took the advice of the recipe I worked from and kept this in the fridge.

But enough about prep; how is the sauce? I tried a small amount on its own first and found it pretty hot but tolerable. The thing about Thai chilies is that they can vary in heat; I planted these from seeds and though hot, the ratio worked out well and they were diluted enough to be more flavorful than painful. I'll call that a win.

I made the burrito bowls to try it out on and it added a nice little kick to the dish. And when it came time to deliver my gift, the excitement over getting a homemade gift may have been the best part of all. Sofar, all fond reviews, and I'm proud to have graduated from baking and cooking into sauce mode. The world is my oyster.

Green Pepper Hot Sauce Recipe

Ingredients:

25 Thai green chilies (approximate)
5-10 serrano peppers
1 green bell pepper

2-3 cloves of garlic
2 cups water
3 teaspoons salt
1/3 cup apple cider vinegar
2 teaspoons honey 1 teaspoon xanthan gum (optional, used tot thicken)

Instructions:

Boil water and add salt. Stir and continue heating until dissolved. Remove from heat and set aside to cool until warm. Cut stems from peppers and slice into halves. Cut bell pepper into large chunks and the garlic into smaller pieces. Add to an empty quart jar (or multiple pint jars). Pour the saltwater brine into the jar, then use a fermenting lid or small plastic zipper bag filled with water to weigh down the peppers slightly. Set aside and leave at room temperature for about 5-7 days. When water is cloudy, drain the brine into a measuring cup. Add peppers to a blender or food processor and pulse until desired consistency is reached. Add back 1/2-3/4 cup of the brine (until desired thinness reached), apple cider vinegar, honey, and xanthan gum and mix until combined. Add to jars and refrigerate for up to 3 months.

adapted from homemade hot sauce