Recipes
Southern Hot Pepper Sauce
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Ingredients
Directions
Recipe by GhostRider
Southern Hot Pepper Sauce
Pepper sauce is found on tables from home kitchens to the finest of dining establishments around the South, and no true Southern meal is really complete without it.
Ingredients
- Empty Bottles
- Hot Peppers (Tabasco or any other hot pepper)
- Apple Cider Vinegar
Instructions
- To achieve the same look as the recipe image, save up bourbon and whiskey bottles all year in preparation for pepper sauce making.
- Wash them, and de-stemmed them. You will want latex gloves for this step. Just hold the pepper in one hand, and quickly twist off the stem with your other hand. They should pop right off.
- Fill a clean bottle (of any kind) about half-way or 3/4 of the way full of peppers.
- Meanwhile, bring a pot of white or apple cider vinegar (your choice – I used apple cider vinegar, 5% acidity) to a boil.
- Once you have your bottles stuffed and the vinegar is boiling, pour the vinegar into the bottles over the peppers.
- Fill to the top, and add a drop or two of olive oil.
- These are shelf stable, and can even be “refilled” once or twice with more boiling vinegar and a couple more drops of olive oil.
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Does shelf stable mean this does not need to be refrigerated
Correct
at least a year sometimes 2
How long will they stay good
Do you have to use olive oil?
Not tried this yet but love pepper sauce and vinegar
Always trying some thing new for just the right taste
Raise my own pepper s season various so taste does from year to year
never heard of using olive oil for peppa vinegar?? Must be a yankee thing.
Actually the oil being added at the end helps prevent corrosion of the lid; if you want to take the pepper sauce “hotter”, fry the chilies in a small amount of oil before adding the boiling vinegar. Look up Puerto Rican Pique recipe
Actually the adding of a small amount of olive oil is both a Texas thing, and a european thing that works. Look up Texas Cowboy Candy. The olive oil breaks down the capsaicin quicker, and produces hotter sauce faster. And yes, hotter than it would be without. Especially if you use mixed peppers. I do several different pepper sauces: Straight Jalapeno, Jalapeno and Cayenne, Jalapeno and Banana, Habanero, and combinations of all of them. I sometimes add a clove of garlic, black peppercorns etc…
I never have and I have been doing this for over 50 years.
Ethel, you sound like you have a lot of experience with making Pepper Sauce, maybe you can answer my question from above. Once the Pepper’s are in the container and the hot Vinegar has been added, how long is the wait before practical use?
Can I add new peppers to last years sauce?
I don’t see why not. The vinegar is already full of flavor, but if you are wanting it to be shelf stable, you will need a new lid, (the flat disc part) and heat up the vinegar so it will seal. It won’t seal if it isn’t boiling. I have put unsealed jars in the microwave and they have then sealed. The metal doesn’t hurt the microwave. You just want to be sure that the waves can get into the jars, so nothing that is totally covered in foil!
its best to start a new batch because the peppers wont be pickled. However, when your bottle is near empty of vinegar just top it off with more vinegar. No need to heat the vinegar. The peppers will lose their potency over time.
Did you ever find an answer to this? My same question
What does the olive oil do.
Capsaisin is not soluble in water but it does dissolve in oils. Be careful how much oil you add. The more oil the hotter it will become.
How long does it take it to get hot. Mississippi hot. Lol
I’m heating my glass containers with the peppers slowly. Just doesn’t seem right to pour boiling liquid into cool glass
Do you water bath them?
Don’t put hot liquid in a cool glass container. Heat the glass in boiling water. If the product is not hot, don’t heat the jars, but hot to hot and cool to cool.
I put peppers in a jar with a ounce of salt and vinegar, then refrigerated. Should I throw that bottle out and boil the vinegar in another batch.
I also add a 1/2 tsp.of cayenne pepper.
I boil 1: 1 vinegar and water. Cool it and then pour it on the peppers in the bottle. I also heat some oil , cool it and add it too Adding curry leaves and mustard and methi seeds to the hot oil gives it a nice flavour. This is optional. The oil works as a seal.Prevents mold.
Do the jars need to be heat sealed, or just put the lid on them and put on a shelf
We always kept the lids on a regular mason jar boiling at a very low temperature until the vinegar was ready to pour over the peppers. We do this for everything we are canning. The lids will seal every time. I have never lost a jar from it coming unsealed.
if they aren’t heat sealed they are not shelf stable. You can keep in the fridge, but otherwise, if you have hot liquid, heat the jars and lids. Dishwasher works good. They will seal themselves as they cool. If any don’t, use it first and keep it in the fridge.
The pepper sauce in vinegar is shelf stable as described in the recipe. That’s the definition of ‘shelf stable’ – you don’t need to do anything ‘extra’ (like heat sealing, or refrigerating…) in order for them to be stored and used, in the open, once made.
You are possibly confusing ‘preserved’ with ‘shelf stable’.
I’ve never heard of heat sealing them. Just make certain that you use a cork or plastic lid due to the acidity.
I’m a Southerner and have made pepper sauce many, many times and never heat sealed them. I totally agree with you.
I grow my own Chili’s and make my own Sauce, but, I am a Novice at it, only started a couple of years ago. My question for today, is how long does it take for the capsaisin to leak into the vinegar, in other words, how long before use can begin?
When can it be used?
I usually wait about 3 months. If cut or sliced peppers are used, about 1 month will do it.
I think I’ll do what you do. If bottles are not heat resistant, I’d be afraid they’d break with boiling vinegar. I also love your additions. Thank you
Put the lids on with a hot vinegar i on the peppers turn the jars upside down on the lid and leave it to it cools it will be sealed