A classic hot sauce
combining sweet and spicy,
adding an exciting twist
to a wide variety of dishes!
Introduction
Let me introduce you to the very first hot sauce I ever made myself, one that has been on the menu every season since, as it’s simply delicious. I definitely can’t take too much credit for the recipe here, as I got inspired by ChiliPepperMadness.com for this one. While the basis for my own version uses quite some of the same ingredients, over time I’ve made a few tweaks to the recipe where I change the ratio of ingredients and added a few more. I mainly like the versatility of this sauce, as it’s great to spice up dishes when they’re served, as well as to include in the mix when cooking.
Ingredients
The ingredients shown below were those used for my 2021 edition of the Mango-Habanero Hot Sauce. As I started from 2 fairly large mangos, the quantities of the other vegetables were also a bit larger than for previous ones. Overall these ingredients are sufficient for about 1 to 1.5 litres of hot sauce. Note that for this version, I went for 3 pepper varieties and two peppers of each kind. Obviously there’s red Habanero, but to spice it up it was sided by yellow Moruga Scorpions and red Carolina Reapers. This one’s not for the faint hearted!
- 2 Mangos
- 4 Tomatoes
- 3 Onions
- 3 Limes
- 5 Cloves of garlic
- 20g of Coriander
- 10g of Cumin
- 200ml of Red Wine Vinegar
- Peppers to taste (I recommend at least a few Habaneros for this quantity)
- A pinch of salt to taste
Preparation
First the mangos, onions and cloves of garlic are peeled and chopped coarsely, before putting them in the blender. The tomatoes, coriander and chili peppers are chopped as well and added to the mix along with the cumin. The juice of the limes and the red wine vinegar are added as well. Note that it might be necessary to do the blending in a few steps, depending on the size of your blender and how coarse you chop the ingredients. After blending sample a bit of the mix and add salt to your liking. Beware that before boiling in, the mix might be very spicy. The final step is to leave things simmer on a low fire until the desired consistency is reached. For a thin sauce it’s possible to filter after boiling or to add additional red wine vinegar or lime juice to the mixture earlier on.
Serving tips
As I mentioned in the introduction, this sauce is quite versatile, so I’ll just make a few suggestions of combinations I’ve tried with it, be sure to experiment and find out for yourself what else you could do with it!
- Works really well with curries, just to spice it up in your plate or to use while cooking!
- Works great with grilled meat, especially poultry, but also pork and beef are worth trying.
- Try this one for spicing up your breakfast. I love this sauce in combination with omelettes or even just on a sandwich with some boiled eggs.
- Try once with your spaghetti Bolognese, you’ll be amazed how good these two mingle!
- Try this sauce as a dip for your tortilla chips once, works like a charm!
- Works nice as well with salads, I especially like the combination with carrots for this one!