There’s nothing like hot sauce to give your food pizzaz, so we set out on a mission to round up some of the best bottles to get your pulse up and palate tingling. This isn’t a list of the “Top 10 Hottest Melt-Your-Face-Off Sauces,” nor is it a competition. We went looking for balance: sauces that leave you neither yawning nor crying for your mother. We sought out something delicious, the flavor of which overrides the burn begging you to stop.
These are the ones that delivered.
Meet the Panel
I am a glutton for punishment and love to try the local liquid fire. My extensive travels have gotten me into some hot messes: from a serving of tteokbokki, Korean rice cakes, in what apparently was a gallon of lava, to a whole Thai pepper hidden in the folds of a mushroom that sent me into a fit of hiccups—bad enough to compel my dinner companions to ask if they should call for medical assistance.
I needed a team. I assembled three more guinea pigs—er, taste testers: Terry, a former newspaper editor with an affinity for foods that demand beer to wash them down; Kurt, a spice fan who has guided group trips abroad; and Tip, who is Thai and prides herself on spice tolerance. We rounded Tip’s heat scores up a notch to put them in line with us mere mortals.
The four of us sampled several brands and styles, all of which had to be available, if not widely, then at least online.
How We Rated Them
Hot sauce flavor is pretty broad. Depending on the kinds of peppers used—habanero, jalapeño, Scotch bonnets, or even the classic aged cayenne of Louisiana-style sauces—there can be a significant flavor difference. When it comes to heat, the notoriously fierce ghost, scorpion, and Carolina reaper peppers lean toward the face-melting variety.We gave our sauces three numerical scores, rated from 1 to 5, for thickness, heat, and complexity or depth of flavor.
Thickness: from thin like water (1), to thick enough to hold its shape and stick in place if drizzled on food (5).
Heat level: from a pleasant heat that may even work for those who “don’t do spicy” (1), to hiccups and runny nose-inducing (5).
Complexity or depth of flavor: From a single-note sauce (not a bad thing) (1), to a lingering complexity, with a profile that either evolves from the initial flavor to the aftertaste or leaves you thinking, “What am I tasting here?” as you try to isolate the hints of this or that (5).
With our rubric set, we laid out the cheese, milk, and crackers (soothing for spicy food—don’t use water), and started our potentially painful but delicious journey.
Crystal Hot Sauce: Quintessential New Orleans Heat
The NOLA faithful will swear by this one. We felt this edged out competitor The Original Louisiana Hot Sauce as the workhorse hot sauce in the Big Easy. While it’s not complex, it’s vinegary, but not too much so, and has great pepper flavor. It’s quite straightforward in terms of ingredients: aged red cayenne peppers, distilled vinegar, and salt. Bring on the jambalaya.
Slap Ya Mama Cajun Pepper Sauce: Louisiana Gets an Upgrade
Kurt and Terry tasted a bit more aged pepper flavor here than in the Crystal Hot Sauce. Tip opened with “wow” but tempered it with “a bit salty.” One teaspoon does have 170 milligrams of sodium, compared to Crystal’s 110 milligrams. But it also brings garlic to the mix and is thicker, thanks to a touch of xanthan gum. The listed “other spices” could mean a lot of things, but I got a bit of black pepper and the faintest taste of Worcestershire. Crystal Hot Sauce should watch its back; this is delicious. Slap Ya Mama also makes Cajun Hot Sauce, Buffalo Wing Sauce, and Jalapeño Pepper Sauce versions.
Frank’s RedHot: King of the Wing
Frank’s is the original Buffalo wing sauce, but I sometimes swap it for Crystal Hot Sauce in Cajun dishes. “Nice combination of sour and salty,” said Tip, while Terry suggested, “Like a Bloody Mary—just add vodka.” At 190 milligrams of sodium per teaspoon, we all found it to be on the salty side. But salt is just the thing for a mild meat such as chicken, right? Like Slap Ya Mama, this has garlic and that makes a notable difference in rounding out the flavor.
Huy Fong Sriracha Sauce: Gets Along With Just About Everything
Sriracha is a sauce named for a town in Thailand where the style originated, but this sriracha is produced in California. Made from ground red jalapeños, the bright red sauce is in a clear plastic squirt bottle with a green cap. This pours on thick and offers a touch of sweetness not common in many other sauces. Garlic and vinegar smoothly blend into the mix, and the moderate heat makes this workable with a wide variety of foods, from Thai dishes and soups to burgers and tuna sandwiches. Its common pairing with mayo compelled the company to bottle the two together. It’s “a great standby,” said Terry. And it’s available in 17- and 28-ounce bottles for fewer trips to the store.
Crying Thaiger Sriracha Sauce: A Real Taste of Thailand
The bottle of red sauce with a green top looks familiar, but this version of sriracha is produced in Thailand. A bit sweeter, and spicier by a hair, it had more flavor than its competitor. Tip found it “much better” and a good blend of “tangy and sweet.” Kurt, who wasn’t a particular fan of this style of sauce, said this is “much more complex than Huy Fong” and it “may change my thinking on sriracha.”
Takahashi Shoten Yuzusco: If Yuzu and Tabasco Had a Baby
This is a Japanese original with a citrus-forward flavor—that would be the yuzu, a fragrant citrus fruit popular in Japan. The ingredients are simple: yuzu zest, tangy green chile peppers, and rice vinegar, no preservatives or colors. By citrus flavor, we don’t mean sour; it’s more of the essence, like cooking with a lime leaf or lemon zest. Terry noted an “herb-like” finish, and Tip found it tangy and peppery. It will work nicely with stir-fries, sauces, and salad dressings, but also heavier foods such as meats and seafood. I frequently add it to guacamole.
Truff Jalapeño Lime Black Truffle-Infused Hot Sauce: Hot Sauce Goes Haute
Do truffles really make everything better? This sauce makes a case for it. Packaged in tastefully designed glass bottles, you might expect Truff’s four hot sauce offerings at an elegant dinner. The Black Truffle Hot and Hotter sauces have unmistakable umami-laden truffle flavors, though the Hotter version loses a tiny bit of flavor behind the extra heat (spice level 3). The White Truffle has a more delicate taste, but the Jalapeño Lime Black Truffle was unanimously our favorite: A light pea-green color and thick enough to stick to foods and hold its shape, this is a balanced blend of the three named ingredients. Terry felt the lime overpowered the truffle a bit, but Tip liked the extra tanginess.
Queen Majesty Cocoa Ghost Hot Sauce: Complexity Reigns
This is a rich, dark-brown sauce with a complex umami flavor and a central note of ghost pepper. Kurt said the flavor caught the back of his tongue, and Tip also tasted the balancing bitterness of cocoa at the finish. The heat doesn’t mess around either.
Secret Aardvark Serrabanero Green: Drown Your Food in This
Secret Aardvark has five flavors in 8-ounce plastic bottles. Tomatoes and roasted tomatoes function as the hot sauce’s base, but it doesn’t skimp on heat. This is decidedly not “ketchup-y.” Our favorite, Serrabanero Green, is made with green tomatoes, serrano peppers, roasted tomatillo, garlic, green habanero, apple cider vinegar, cane sugar, cilantro, basil, and more. It’s a touch spicier than you might expect, but not overwhelming or lingering. Kurt said, “I’d eat that on eggs.” There’s even a recipe printed on the label for Serrabanero green rice.
Cholula Chipotle Hot Sauce: The Old Reliable Takes on Some Smoke
The original flavor Cholula is a very popular Mexican sauce made with arbol and pequin peppers, which are milder than the Louisiana-style sauce peppers. But some added regional spices take the edge off the vinegar for a fuller, delicious flavor. Still, it is the mildest of the sauces listed here. We found the chipotle version to be the one to keep out on the kitchen table. It’s very approachable with its slightly increased but still modest heat, packs the full flavor of the original, and adds the chipotle’s smokiness without taking that smoke over the top.
Rancho Gordo Felicidad Chipotle Sauce: Nutty, Smoky, Hot Deliciousness
Steve Sando founded Rancho Gordo in Napa, California, with the mission of producing and popularizing heirloom bean varieties. But the company also makes outstanding hot sauces. The chipotle sauce has a tangy, smoky aroma and a flavor to match, with nuttiness from pumpkin seeds and a note of dark chocolate. It would taste great on, well, beans!
Salsa Huichol Black: You Might Be Tempted to Drink It
Salsa Huichol makes Mexican hot sauces, similar to Cholula, but a bit more flavorful and based on cascabel peppers, which are milder than jalapeños. They offer four varieties: Hot Sauce, Habanero, La de las Botanas (available in a 1.05-gallon plastic jug!), and this remarkably distinct “black” sauce. Tangy, not vinegary, it pours a dark-brown color like chocolate syrup, and we all agreed it has the rich flavor of a steak sauce. A total keeper. I wonder if we can get the gallon jug of this one.
Torchbearer Garlic Reaper Sauce: Blurring Pleasure and Pain
I’m not sure if I can capture this precisely, but Tip said, “AAAH!” and then stopped talking. That made the rest of us a little nervous. Here we enter the “Melt-Your-Face-Off” zone. You want hot? This is it. Carolina Reaper takes no prisoners. You can still taste the peppers and garlic, and it has a creamy consistency that lingers on your tongue—but your tongue may be broken. It’s good quality, but if you have a casual interest in heat, maybe start farther up our list.
Did we skip your favorite hot sauce? What would you like us to taste test next? Join the conversation in the comments.
