How to Make Hot Sauce

Back in the spring, Paul and I planted nine pepper plants in our front yard. Six of the nine were hot (jalapeno, habanero, golden cayenne, hot banana pepper, Thai hot chili, and tabasco). The others were my bell peppers. Anyway, as of last weekend the plants were loaded with hot peppers. Paul uses some for "pepper challenges" with his friends, and I cook with some too. But we still had way too many.

So what did we do? We made hot sauce! I looked up a recipe online, tweaked it to my liking, and then we spent all day last Saturday makin' and cannin' sauce. I'll share the recipe in a little photo essay.

1) Measure out a pound of hot peppers. We mixed different varieties because the larger peppers weigh more so it was easier to use some of those in every batch.

Here's a bowl of jalapenos and hot banana peppers, ready for one batch:

 And here's a bowl of habaneros, ready for another:

2) Chop the peppers and place in the bowl of a food processor. Process until mostly well chopped.

3) Add one chopped onion, 4 cloves of minced garlic, and two cups of tomato sauce. Process until very smooth.

4) Pour the sauce into a saucepan with a lid. Simmer for about 15 to 20 minutes on medium-low heat.

5) Stir in one tablespoon of vinegar.

6) Carefully pour the sauce into a fine mesh sieve and use the back of a metal spoon to push the liquid through the sieve into a bowl. Reserve the chopped peppers for chili paste. 

7) Pour the sauce into sterilized jars. Add the paste to separate sterilized jars. Seal. Add to a water canner. Cover with water and bring to a boil for 30 minutes.

All in all, we ended up with 16 jars of hot sauce and chili paste. The sauces are all delicious, but the tabasco-Thai chili-jalapeno is by far the hottest.