Rooster Sauce

I found this post on Life hacker talking about "rooster sauce" and adding some Worcestershire sauce for a great steak marinade. Down in the responses, vlatro provided this home made hot sauce recipe. (I hope they don't mind that I blatantly copied it!) But it looks really good to me and worth a try. I've got to do something with all of the peppers Will and I are growing this year.


vlatro 7:08 AM

Not much to work with comment-wise. The Article's pretty solid. So I'll just wander off on a tangent here...

I've been making my own hot sauce for a few years now. It's unbelievably easy and can save you a ton if you go through a lot of it.

A $7 (8oz) jar of decent hot sauce lasts about a week in my house. Doing the math, that's $354 a year just in one condiment. So I decided to find a cheaper alternative.

I grow my own hot peppers (they'll grow pretty much anywhere in the Continental US, and many other places as well). That'll be the bulk of your cost.

I prefer Jalapenos and Habeneros, along with the hot Thai chili and Cayenne.

The recipe is simple. Put your preferred peppers (1lb) in a blender along with one cup vinegar. Puree the mix and move it to a sauce pan. Add any dry spices and seasonings (Mustard powder, Turmeric, Garlic, Salt, Onion powder, whatever you want). Add in 5 more cups of vinegar. Boil until you've reduced it by half, stirring occasionally. Strain the mix through a cheese cloth into bottles. Makes 1 quart.

If you want to get fancy, try smoking some of the peppers, add white wine or Bourbon in place of some of the vinegar. Citric acid will kick up the heat quite a bit. Experiment. My exact recipe makes the sauce deadly hot. Many people prefer a milder taste. Start with a small batch, get it just the way you want it and then expand it to fill the quantity you need.

Remember, there's no such thing as a real sauce recipe. The fruit, in this case the peppers, will vary in flavor dramatically from one pepper to the next, so taste it constantly and season and cook to desired taste and consistency.

1 Gallon = 16 8oz bottles. My cost per gallon was about $4.00. That compared to $112.00 for the same amount purchased in the grocery store. Not to mention the home made stuff is way better.