Homemade Sriracha Sauce

recipe by Joshua Bousel  for Serious Eats

Ingredients:

  • 1 1/2 lbs peppers of choice,* stems snipped off, leaving green tops intact
  • 6 cloves garlic, peeled
  • 4 tablespoons light brown sugar
  • 1 tablespoon Kosher salt
  • 1/2 cup distilled white vinegar

Directions:

  1. Place peppers, garlic, sugar, and salt in the bowl of a food processor with steel blade. Pulse the chilies until very finely chopped, stopping to scrape sides of bowl as necessary. Transfer mixture to a clean jar, cover, and let sit at room temperature.
  2. Check jar each day for fermentation, when little bubbles start forming at bottom of jar, about 3-5 days. Stir contents each day, continuing to let ferment until chilies are no longer rising in volume, an additional 2-3 days.
  3. Transfer chilies to jar of a blender, add in white vinegar, and puree until completely smooth, 1-3 minutes.
  4. Pour into a mesh strainer set atop of a medium saucepan. Strain mixture into saucepan, using a rubber spatula to push through as much pulp as possible. Only seeded and larger pieces of chilies should remain in strainer.
  5. Bring mixture to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer until sauce thickens and clings to a spoon, 5 or 10 minutes. Transfer to an airtight container and store in refrigerator for up to 6 months. Makes 1 ½ cups.

*The original recipe called for red jalapenos, but you can use any peppers you like in this recipe, keeping in mind that the color of the peppers will be the color of the sauce. You can go with sweet mild peppers, smoky peppers, or as hot as you want. You could even do a combination of peppers to get a more subtle flavor profile. The distilled white vinegar is a neutral flavor so as not to interfere with the peppers. Using other vinegars would change the flavor of the sauce, perhaps in some interesting ways. Don’t be afraid to experiment.

In reading the comments posted following the recipe on Serious Eats, I saw that someone recommended saving the seeds and pulp after straining the pepper mixture and drying it, then grinding it to make a nice spice to add to meats, fish, soups or stews.

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