A few weeks ago, we found ourselves with a pound of fresh habanero peppers to use up. Hot sauce seemed the obvious solution, so we doubled this recipe and modified it slightly.

We started with these ingredients:

• 40 Habaneros
• 1-2 heads garlic
• 1 cup distilled white vinegar
• 1 cup water
• 1/2 cup lemon juice
• 2 tsp salt
• 2 tsp smoked paprika
• 2 tsp sugar

To make the sauce, we simply chopped up the habaneros (removing most of the seeds) and roasted them with the garlic and a bit of oil at 180°C for about 20 minutes. We let them cool, squeezed the roasted garlic out of the cloves and threw everything in a blender (including the rest of the liquids and spices). Blend until smooth. That’s it!

A few weeks later, we decided to try making a sweeter version. That recipe goes like this:

For the basic hot sauce –

• 1,200 grams Habaneros
• 3 heads garlic
• 2 cups distilled white vinegar
• 1 cup lemon juice
• 4 tsp salt
• 4 tsp smoked paprika
• 4 tsp white sugar

For the sugar syrup:

• 1 cup water
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 2 tbsp ketchup
• 2 tsp cornstarch

How easy is that? And it’s seriously one of the best hot sauce recipes we’ve made yet. We’re taking a little along on our weekend bike tours now, to make our normal meals even spicier!

Thanks to KDavidClark on Flickr for the photo