Fermented Hot Sauce - Simple and Delicious! (2024)

Learn how to makeFermented Hot Sauce – a simple way to enhance and preserve your abundance of garden chilies to use throughout the winter. Full of healthy probiotics, this easy recipe has many health benefits. Plus it just tastes good! Video.

For many of you with gardens out there, this is the season of harvesting. Here’s a simple way to use all those chilies you’ve got growing out back and turn them into something that will bring you a little kiss of sunshine during the cold months – Fermented Hot Sauce! Now, before you feel intimidated – know that this only takes 20 minutes of actual hands-on time and no special equipment. It’s ridiculously easy!

Why I prefer fermenting over canning:

• Healthier: Fermentation creates “ALIVE” food- incredibly rich in probiotics. These good bacteria are living creatures that work with our microbiome to improve digestion, boost immunity, and prevent disease. Having a diverse microbiome is healthy! Canning “kills” all these healthy probiotics through the heating process.
• Taste: I prefer fermentation over “canning” because fermentation keeps these healthy bacteria alive, and as a result, the fermented food actually tastes better and better with time! Canning halts the development of flavor.
• It’s easier: Canning requires more hands-on time.

How to make Fermented Hot Sauce:

Step one: Fill a clean 2-quart jar with any type of fresh hot chili, onions, garlic and thinly sliced carrot. You can use bell peppers to temper the hot chilis if you want a milder version. Just stick with the same color palette so your fermented hot sauce stays colorful and vibrant.

In this recipe, I used Padrone Peppers, a Spanish variety that had turned red, which I found at our farmer’s market. But feel free to use any kind you want or a blend. You’ll need about 1 pound in total. (You can easily halvethis recipe)

Step two: Make a saltwater brine, using 1 1/4 teaspoons fine sea salt, per 1cup of water.

Salt Ratio for Fermentation:

Having the right proportion of salt to water is important. Not enough salt may allow unhealthy bacteria to grow. Too much salt will kill all the bacteria and the chilies won’t ferment. If you need to add more water to the jar, then add salt accordingly.

Use 1 1/4 teaspoons fine sea salt per 1 cup of water. This is roughly a 3% Brine (3 grams of salt per 100g of water).

Here, I used 5 cups of water, so I added 1 1/4 teaspoon salt x5 cups water = roughly 6 1/4 teaspoons of fine groundsea salt. Heating the water slightly helps the salt dissolve.

Step Three: Combine! Pour thebrine over the chilies and push them down so they are completely submerged under the brine. Feel free to cover the chilies with a cabbage leaf to keep everything down, then weigh them down.

Step Four:Weigh down the chilies. You can use a fermentation weight, like this version that I really like, that will fit perfectly into a mason jar, to keep everything submerged. If anything floats to the top, and touches air, this can potentially mold, so either fish it out with a slotted spoon, or push it down under the brine.

Or in a pinch, a zip lock bag filled with water can be used as a weight, just place this over top. I prefer using a glass or ceramic weight.

The water in the bag will work as the fermentation weight here. A small clean shot glass, placed over a cabbage leaf, can also act as a fermentation weight as well.

Here you can see I’m working on a mild green hot sauce which is in the fermenting phase still.

Step Five: Place a lid on top, leaving it loose. You want the fermentation gasses to be able to escape while keeping any creatures (bugs, flies) out. A couple of layers of cheesecloth also work here.

Step Six: Place the jar in a bowl or pan to catch any liquid that may spill over, and place it in a cool, dark place, like a basem*nt. 65F-70F is ideal. If you don’t have a basem*nt or a cool place, a lower cupboard in the kitchen is an option.

Check every few days, removing any “floaters”. After a few days, the brine will turn slightly cloudy, and when you tap the jar, you should see little bubbles float to the surface or some overflow on the pan- all signs of life!

Ferment 5-10 days. I usually go 7-12 days, long enough to soften those carrots, which you will be blending up in the sauce.

If, for some reason, you are going out of town, you can always place the ferment in your fridge, which will slow it down, but keep it alive, and you can resume when you get back.

Why is the Brine Cloudy?

Cloudy, tangy brine is a natural by-product of the fermentation process- a combination of lactic acid and yeast- and is the reason why they call it Lacto-fermentation.

Various strains of bacteria are present on the surface of all plants, especially ones growing close to the ground. Lactobacillus bacteria convert sugar into lactic acid, preserving the peppers.

Both salt and lactic acid prevent the growth of harmful bacteria. Over time, the cloudiness can settle out of the brine to the bottom of the jar. Some batches are naturally cloudier than others, but all are safe to consume.

A cloudy brine is a sign that you have a safe, successful, and tasty ferment.

Step 7: Blend! Strain the brine, saving it. Add the strained chilies/carrots/garlic to the blender with one cup of brine and blend until smooth, a least a minute! At this point, you can add herbs (oregano or cilantro is nice here) and spices (cumin, coriander, chipotle). Add a little splash of Braggs apple cider vinegar if you like (this is optional but also full of healthy bacteria) and more brine to desired consistency.

If you like the ideaSriracha, you could also make it sweet by adding sugar or honey, and perhaps ginger. You could also add herbs.

Step 8: Store! For everyday use, store the fermented hot sauce in squeeze bottles– leaving the tip off or open (or lightly closed) in the fridge. The hot sauce will continue to ferment in the fridge, and the open tip will allow the gasses out. Before using, cover the tip with your finger and give it a good shake.

A little Warning!

If you place the fermented hot sauce in tightly sealed bottles, unrefrigerated, they will EXPLODE! This is because the hot sauce is still fermenting (producing gases) and will continue to create bubbles. Remember, it is alive, and this is NOT canning.

*If giving as a gift, yes, feel free to use a “cute bottle” but with instructions to refrigerate and loosen the lid.

But my hot sauce is way too hot!

Don’t be too alarmed if your hot sauce tastes overly hot when you first store it. After a week or two in the fridge, the gradual slow fermenting will substantially mellow out the heat! It’s quite surprising. Many times, I’ve made a hot sauce and tried it, thinking there was no way we would be able to eat it because of the heat level. But after a week or two, it really does calm down the heat.Fermenting the hot sauce gives it another layer of flavor, adding more and more complexity.This will keep indefinitely in the fridge.

Types of chilies to use:

Use any fresh chili pepper you like or a blend of different peppers (in the same color palate). To temper the heat, feel free to add similarly colored bell peppers (red, yellow, or green bell pepper). For example- add a golden bell pepper to habaneros to temper the heat. Or a green bellpeper to serano chilies.

Keep in mind you will be blending the sauce, so stick with the same color palate to make a vibrant-colored sauce. For example, mixing red and green peppers will yield a brown hot sauce- not the prettiest, but up to you. 😉

Also, keep in mind that fermentation will mellow out the heat of the peppers over time.

I am hearing that frozen peppers can be fermented ( please read the comments), but have not personally tried this.

• Fermentation Kit (optional)
• Fermentation weights
• 2-quart mason jar (8-cup mason jar)
• Blender
• Strainer
• squeeze bottles

Making Fermented Hot sauce is a fun little project that only takes about 20 minutes of hands-on time. A lovely way to use up all the chilis in your garden (or a way to try out all the beautiful varieties at the farmers market) and a healthy way to bring more healthy probiotics into your life!

Mother Nature will do all the work for you! And after 5-7 days, you will end up with the most delicious, alive hot sauce that will get better and better with age!

Troubleshooting

• If there are no signs of fermentation, double-check you measured the salt ratio correctly. This is typically the most common problem (adding too much salt will halt the process and kill all the bacteria, even the good ones.).
• Try filtered water. Chlorinated water can halt fermentation.
• Do not over-wash or peel the peppers/carrots (for example, don’t use any type of produce soap) as the wild bacteria from the pepper skin, carrot peeling is what is starting the fermentation. I have the best luck with farmers’ market chili peppers and carrots because they are not over-cleaned or treated with anything.
• Mold: If your ferment has molded, something likely rose to the top of the jar and had contact with air. I would start over.
• Bad smell: the brine should smell tangy, garlic, and fresh, not “foul” in any way! If it smells “off,” it could be that salt was mismeasured or the ferment was contaminated: dirty hands, dirty utensils, dirty jar.

More Favorite Ferments!

• How to Make Kimchi!
• Simple Cabbage Sauerkraut
• Beet and Cabbage Sauerkraut
• Probiotic Gut Shot
• How to make Fermented Pickles!

Watch HoW to make Fermented Hot Sauce!

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