One of my hobbies is gardening. I love planting the seeds and watching the plants slowly grow throughout the season. One of the plants I always make sure to plant is hot peppers. They grow like weeds, produce beautiful white flowers, and the bright-colored peppers are a joy to watch grow.
At the end of the season, the sheer amount of peppers can be overwhelming. Last year I let too many peppers go to waste because I had no idea what to do with them. This year I decided I was going turn these peppers into hot sauce. A much better decision than throwing them away.
Shown below is not the full pepper harvest. Some are still growing in December(although not for much longer). I had about 40 peppers to work with which produced about five full bottles.
Amazon had these amazing hot sauce bottles with heat activated shrink-wrap. In case you get inspired by this post, you can get a hold of these bottles here. Seriously, these bottles make you feel like Texas Pete himself!
The usual suspects all lined up and ready to go. I used 20 peppers per batch and made sure to trim the stems from the peppers before blending. I tried to keep the peppers consistent and not mix and match too much. Fun fact, the small round ones are Pequin peppers and are often 5-8 times hotter than jalapeños!
I added a very generous portion of fresh onion to the hot sauce as well which turned out to be half an onion per 20 peppers. You can adjust this to your liking. In addition, I added about three cloves of garlic per 20 pepper batch.
When everything is chopped, you are ready to go. Just simply place all the ingredients in the vinegar and water mixture and bring to a boil. Once the mixture is boiling, you then simmer for 10 minutes.
The mixture gets cloudy after the boiling and stewing process. A professional Pro-tip for you; do not place your head close to the pot unless you want to pepper spray yourself!
If your blender can handle hot liquids, you can blend the stewed mixture right away. Once everything is nicely blended, transfer to the hot sauce bottles.
One of my favorite parts was applying the shrink-wrap! You just place the shrink wrap over the bottle and then submerge in boiling water. The heat will then “shrink” the seal around the hot sauce.
Despite the use of different peppers, the appearance came out the same. Truthfully, I was expecting a different appearance and taste for each batch but they came out very similar. They are amazingly delicious, however, with a fresh vinegar taste first and then the heat follows right afterward. The sauce is spicy but not overwhelming. I am super happy to be able to hand these out as gifts this Christmas but I made sure to save myself a bottle.
