I grew Cayenne Peppers for the first time this year. The one plant had almost a pound of peppers on the it. I thought Cayenne Pepper hot sauce would be a great thing to make with them. Making your own hot sauce at home only takes a few ingredients. The recipe comes together easily. It can be stored in the refrigerator or preserved by canning for longer storage.
Hot Sauce is as popular as ketchup or ranch dressing for some people. People put that s*** on everything. It’s added to sauces, pizza, eggs, soups, sandwiches, and more . This recipe lets you enjoy it now or preserve it for later.
Cayenne Pepper Sauce for Now
The Cayenne Pepper sauce is great for keeping in the fridge and using soon after making it. Put the hot sauce in your canning jar, cool to room temperature and keep it in the fridge. It should last a while with the vinegar and salt preserving it. Keep a jar for yourself and give the others to your friends. Your hot sauce friends will be excited in getting some of this hot sauce to put on their favorite foods.
Cayenne Pepper Sauce for Later
The hot sauce recipe makes just over 3 cups of spicy deliciousness. For longer storage I decided to preserve it by canning it. Canning allows you to preserve your home-grown produce and enjoy it for months beyond the growing season.
If you are apprehensive about canning or have never done it before this is an excellent recipe to start with. It takes a couple of kitchen tools that you may not have but I’ll give you links to those tools as well. They are not expensive and great for the beginner and novice.
Resources for Canning
Here are some resources if you’re not familiar with canning or need a refresher course.
National Center for Home Food Preservation – A site full of information on preserving food by canning, freezing, drying, pickling, fermenting and more.
Ball and Kerr – You know, the mason jar companies. This site has tons of info for mason jars oldest purpose.
Canning Supplies
Water Bath Canner – This one is available online and inexpensive.
Canning Essentials – Jar lifter, Magnetic lid lifter, wide mouth funnel, tongs and more all in one kit.
Mason Jars – You can get mason jars at Target, Wal-Mart, hardware stores and many grocery stores.
Cayenne Pepper Sauce
Ingredients
- 1 lb. Cayenne Peppers.I did use a couple small poblano peppers that were red to bring the total weight to 1 pound
- 5 Cloves of Garlic,peeled and crushed.
- 3 ½ cups White Vinegar 5% Acidity. You want enough to cover your peppers, onion and garlic.
- ¼ of a Red Onion cut into a couple big pieces
- 1 tsp Smoked Paprika
- 2 tsp Coarse Kosher Salt
Instructions
- Wash and dry canning jars, rings, and lids. Put the jars, rings, and lids in simmering water. This keeps them sterilized. I like to put my jars in the canner and the rings and lids in a separate, smaller pot. Let them simmer while you prepare the hot sauce.
- To prepare the peppers, cut off the stems. Remove the seeds from some of the peppers for a milder hot sauce. I left the seeds in mine.
- Put all ingredients in a non-reactive pot. Stainless steel, ceramic, or enamel coated metal pots are all non-reactive.
- Bring to a boil then cover and simmer for 20 minutes.
- Remove the pot from the heat and transfer the peppers, garlic and onion to a blender or food processor.
- Add some of the cooking liquid if needed, to help with the blending.
- Blend until very smooth. 2 or 3 minutes.
- While the peppers are blending, reserve a cup or so of the cooking liquid. The rest of the cooking liquid can be discarded.
- Add the pureed pepper mix back to the empty pot.
- Add some of the reserved liquid to the cayenne pepper sauce to get the consistency wanted. This is to your preference.
- Taste cayenne pepper sauce and season with more salt if needed.
- Bring the sauce back to a boil and turn off the heat.
- Now it’s time to can the cayenne pepper sauce.
- Remove the canning jars from the canner and fill with the sauce leaving ¼ inch of space at the top.
- Once the jars are filled put the lid and ring onto the jar and twist jar shut.
- Place jars in canner and bring water to a boil. Water should cover the jars by 1 inch.
- Bring water to a boil and process for 10 minutes.
- Remove hot sauce jars from the canner and allow to cool.
Notes
This would add some great spiciness to Beef Hash or Grilled Shrimp.
Enjoy!
