How to Make: Garlic Lover’s Hot Sauce

Hot Sauce Making Kit – Complete instructions and recipes for making ten different hot sauce styles using fresh peppers or our pepper mash. We teach you how to select and prepare fresh ingredients like cayenne, habanero and jalapeno peppers. Then we have you blend them with the five exotic spices included in the kit to make hot sauces which match your taste exactly. Our Homemade hot sauce kit includes instructions, recipes, 4 oz. Pepper Mash, five spice packets, three 5 oz. hot sauce bottles with screw on caps. Hot pepper safety and handling tips too!

I recently received 2 different hot sauce making kits to evaluate and provide feedback on and frankly, I don’t know why we haven’t done this on the HSB sooner. After comparing the two kits, I decided to test out the Leener’s kit first since it contained pepper mash and the other kit did not – I’ll have to test that kit with some fresh peppers.

KIT INCLUDES
4 oz. Cayenne Pepper Mash
1 oz. Black Cumin Seeds
1 oz. Jamaican Jerk
1 oz. Chipolte Pepper
1 oz. Ancho Pepper
1 oz. Curry Powder
3 ea. Sauce Bottles
1 ea. Small Funnel
1 ea. Recipes and Tips
1 ea. Growing Hot Peppers

Having never made a hot sauce before, I decided to try out what appeared to be the simplest recipe in the book – plus I already had the majority of the ingredients and only had to get a tomato from the market to make this happen.

GARLIC LOVER’S HOT SAUCE
Pepper Mash Method
2 Tbs. Cayenne Mash
1 tsp. Garlic Powder
1 ea. Plum Tomato
1/4 cup Distilled White Vinegar
1 tsp. Black Cumin
1/2 tsp. Curry Powder
1 tsp. Allspice
1 Tbs. Sugar
1/2 tsp. Salt

Dry Spices 

White Vinegar 

To remove the excess moisture and seeds from fresh tomatoes, cut the tomato in half across it’s middle leaving a the stem on one half. Hold the half with the skin side up and gently squeeze the liquid and seeds out. If you wish to remove the skin, place the seeded tomatoes into boiling water for 3 minutes. The skin will loosen and peel right off. Seeded tomatoes can also be roasted just like peppers. Roasting also removes more moisture. The best substitute for fresh tomato is canned tomato juice.

Cayenne Pepper Mash 

Combine all ingredients and blend (or use a food processor) 

 

Pour sauce into sauce pan and heat until boiling 

Hot Pack Instructions
This is the most important step in the process. Your hot sauce must be properly canned in order to assure freshness, flavor and shelf life. The procedure is the same as you would use for canning tomatoes.
Your hot sauce bottles must be clean before starting. Wash them with soap and water and rinse them thoroughly. Do not wash the caps with the white paper seal inside them. If the paper seal gets wet it will be ruined. The seal will sanitize itself later in the process.
Place a wire rack on the bottom of a pot of boiling water. Place the bottles on the rack making sure they are completely full of water. Let them boil for at least 5 minutes.
When you are ready to pack your sauce, remove a bottle from the boiling water with tongs and drain out the water. Your sauce should also be at the boiling point. Hold the bottle with a dry towel and fill it with sauce using a measuring cup to help you pour. Place the dropper cap on the bottle and screw the cap on tight. Turn the bottle upside down for 10 minutes. This will sanitize the lid. Let bottles cool completely before refrigerating.

Freshly packed Garlic Lover’s Hot SauceNow I have to let the hot sauce age for 1 week in the refrigerator – the longer the sauce ages, the more complex the flavor will become. Properly packed hot sauce will last six to nine months unopened.

The Leener’s Kit was easy to use, but I would say that with only the mash provided in the kit, you can only make 2 of the 12 recipes included. In fact, they should replace the Cayenne Mash with Habanero Mash since 6 of the recipes call for Habaneros or Habanero mash. As I said, the kit is great for those wanting to understand the basics of hot sauce making but you will find yourself very limited by the recipes and ingredients in the box. Stay tuned for a report on how the hot sauce tastes next week…

I wonder how many HSBers have bought kits like this before branching out into their own hot sauce making adventures.