“In the United States, probably the number one thing that people think of when they think of hot sauce is Tabasco,” says Stephen Chavez, a senior chef-instructor at the Institute of Culinary Education’s Los Angeles campus. It’s considered a Louisiana-style hot sauce, meaning one that has a vinegary base, is fermented and uses medium-hot chilis like tabasco or cayenne peppers, which is where it gets its bright color from. Tabasco is also a pretty salty sauce, says Marcus Shell, the culinary director of Uptown Hospitality Group and the executive chef of By The Way in Charleston, South Carolina.
Tabasco’s vinegar-forward flavor is the first thing our testers noted about the hot sauce, in addition to its thin, runny consistency. It’s a very basic option made with only three ingredients, and you can find it in nearly any grocery store, as well as the pantry section of most big-box retailers. I’ve even seen it in pharmacies and at gas station stores. Tabasco is one of the least intimidating sauces we tried, too — testers say it didn’t linger in their mouths much. A few drops is plenty to give food a tangy kick, so if you’re looking for something to get your tastebuds used to hot sauce without fear of overwhelming them, Tabasco is ideal.
Similar to Tabasco, Frank’s Red Hot is a Louisiana-style variety, but its consistency is a bit thicker, its flavor is less vinegary and its spice level is milder, according to our testers. It’s one of NBC Select intern Andriana Kourkoumelis’ all-time favorites. “As someone who enjoys a kick to my food, Frank’s is the perfect level of spicy,” she says. “This hot sauce has been my favorite since I was a kid and I put it on absolutely everything.” The brand especially recommends adding it to wings, chicken sandwiches and buffalo chicken dip.
“Cholula was my introduction to hot sauce as a kid, so it’s a hit of nostalgia every time I eat it,” says NBC Select updates editor Mili Godio. “It’s extremely versatile, so I can put it on practically any food, including eggs, avocado toast and pizza. Plus, it’s not too strong, so I don’t feel like I’m in pain when I pair it with food.”
Cholula is a Mexican hot sauce made with various spices (although the brand doesn’t specify which ones), giving it a full-bodied flavor with a firm heat index, says Shell. He finds it perfect for tacos, among other foods. I used to never reach for Cholula when it was on the table at restaurants, but after testing it, I’ve begun to. I definitively taste the spices in it, making bland dishes more palatable and flavorful dishes even more nuanced. Like Tabasco, you can find Cholula nearly anywhere, so it also gets bonus points for accessibility.
We tried Melinda’s entire line of hot sauces during our testing, and out of all the green options, this jalapeño one won all our testers over. Many of them now plan to keep a bottle at home.
Melinda’s Jalapeño Pepper Hot Sauce stays on your tongue and in your mouth for a bit after you eat it, says NBC Select commerce editor Lindsay Schneider, who has a low heat tolerance. There’s a hint of sweetness to the mild sauce, but you get a kick, too, says Godio. Melinda’s, one of our favorite Latino-owned businesses, describes the flavor as tangy, zesty and zingy, and recommends eating the hot sauce with foods like tacos, tortas, burritos, enchiladas and quesadillas. Our testers only had one complaint about this hot sauce: it comes out of the bottle too slowly because the opening at the top is very narrow.
“I remember being sad when this bottle of hot sauce was finally empty,” says NBC Select reporter Harry Rabinowitz, who brought it home after our first phase of in-office testing. “It’s lively — the mix of both jalapenos and habaneros gives it a fun, layered taste that’s good as a hot sauce or cooking ingredient.”
Pisqueya’s Medium Heat Hot Sauce is vibrant, bright, zesty and tangy, according to the women-owned brand. Testers say its heat builds in your mouth for a few seconds after you try it, but it doesn’t stick around for long, making each bite a blank canvas. We also noticed that the garlic in the mixture grounds the acidity and peppers so all the flavors are present and well-balanced. The hot sauce is liquidy, but it’s not watery at all — it has a thicker, puree-like texture to it.
Truff’s hot sauce is the only one we tested that’s infused with black truffles, giving it a unique flavor — nothing we tried was remotely similar, and it was clear that the brand focused on taste, not just spice. “As a truffle lover, I’m a big fan of Truff’s original flavor — it’s delicious and it’s not too strong,” says Godio, who has been a Truff customer for years. “I keep my Truff hot sauce stocked at home, and I gift it to nearly all of my friends and family around the holidays.” The brand gets the black truffles for its hot sauce from Northern Italy and its agave nectar from Jalisco, Mexico.
Sriracha is a tangy, slightly sweet and garlicky hot sauce that originated in Vietnam and is made with fresno peppers, which are red jalapeños, says Chavez. Numerous brands make their own version of it, but Huy Fong Foods’ Sriracha is arguably one of first brands to bottle it up and gain notoriety in the U.S. I consider it a classic, and growing up, there was always a bottle in my family’s fridge.
Beyond the fact that the flavor compliments almost anything I’m eating, I love the squeezy bottle dispenser, which helps me control how much I add to food. I also like the thicker, drizzle-able consistency — I often mix it into dressings, marinades and dips to add a little heat.
“This hot sauce isn’t super spicy, but it adds a nice jalapeno flavor to whatever you want,” says Rabinowitz. “For me, it’s the most put-it-on-everything hot sauce. You can tell from the bottle, which is a plastic squeeze bottle with a screw cap, that it’s basically screaming ‘drizzle this on whatever you want.’” The hot sauce has a bright red color and a rich, savory flavor, plus it’s on the thicker side, so it sits on top of food nicely rather than immediately getting absorbed into it.
Local Hive is primarily a honey brand, but it makes a line of honey-infused hot sauces, all of which we tested. I immediately gravitated toward the Mango Habanero option because I prefer hot sauces that are centered around flavor rather than heat, and this was the only one we tried that had fruit as one of its main ingredients. The hot sauce has a noticeable sweetness from the mango and honey it’s made with, but it’s not overpowering. The sweetness cuts the heat of the habanero peppers just the right amount, although it definitely has a kick, which I primarily feel on my tongue. Because this hot sauce is slightly sweet and citrusy, I add it to foods I’d typically drizzle hot honey on, and I’ve enjoyed it on fish like salmon, shrimp, halibut and sole, as well as burrito bowls.
Original Habanero was our team’s favorite red hot sauce from Melinda’s. Rabinowitz took it home after our in-office testing, and it’s the first bottle he emptied. “It’s classic, versatile, easy to use and easy to enjoy,” he says. “I put it on basically everything and it gave a pleasant, palatable kick that wasn’t too vinegar-heavy, unlike other brands’ options. It’s also got a classic glass bottle with good flow.” The sauce is warm, fruity and citrusy, according to Melinda’s.
High Mesa Chili Co. hot sauces are only available through the brand’s website, so they’re not as easily accessible as most of the other options we tested. But our list of favorites felt incomplete without its Roasted Hatch Hot Sauce, which was an overall crowd-pleaser, even among testers who are typically “afraid” to consume spicy foods, like NBC Select SEO editor Nikki Brown. “When you taste a bite, the chili hits you hard and fast, but then it tones down,” she says. “The taste also lingers in my mouth, but not so much that I can’t enjoy the rest of my food.” The hot sauce is made with a variant of Hatch chili called Matador, which High Mesa Chili Co. gets from New Mexico.
This hot sauce is one of the thickest we tried — many testers compared it to salsa. The only flaw we found was in the packaging. Since the hot sauce is thick, we had to shake the bottle to get it out of the narrow opening, and once it started coming out, it was hard to stop.
In addition to testing hot sauces, I asked experts to share their favorite options. Here are their top picks.
“Far and away, my son and I’s favorite hot sauce is Marie Sharp’s,” says Chavez. “They’ve figured out the right blend of really spicy and vinegary, and their sauces are carrot-based, so the carrot balances out the pepper. If you’re trying to find a hot sauce you haven’t had before, Marie Sharp’s entire line is really good, but especially the habanero.”
“Most people know Mexican hot sauces like Cholula, Tapatio and El Yucateco, which are all really good, but the real ones know that Valentina is the best,” says Chavez. “It’s not as spicy as the others, but it’s really flavorful.” Shell agrees — when people ask him for hot sauce recommendations, his sleeper pick is always Valentina.
“Red Clay’s OG Hot Sauce has a subtle but sufficient fresno chili flavor with a smooth, silky texture to pair with its original purpose, which is oysters,” says Shell. “All their hot sauces are chef-crafted, fresh and feature almost peculiar ingredients for hot sauce. Their products are never cooked — instead they use salt and vinegar to ferment the chilis and create a naturally emerged product.” In addition to the brand’s original sauce, Shell recommends their Carolina variety, which he says has a similar consistency to Cholula.
Before you start shopping for hot sauce, ask yourself what you want it to add to a dish. “Are you looking for heat or are you looking for flavor?,” says Shell. “Some sauces exist just to make you sweat, and some really compliment food.” Once you identify that, you can start thinking through the factors experts outline below to find a hot sauce you like.
While shopping, remember that flavor and heat are subjective, says Saldivar. What’s spicy or delicious to you may not be to someone else, so testing a bunch of options, pairing them with different foods and regulating how much you use (starting with a couple drops before dousing a meal with it) is key.
Hot sauce gets its spice from the peppers it’s made with. Different types vary in their heat level, which we measure using the Scoville Scale. It’s based on peppers’ concentration of capsaicin, a chemical compound that causes a burning sensation when we consume it, says McManus.
Peppers are rated on their heat level in Scoville heat units (SHU) — the higher the number on the scale, which ranges from 0 to over 2,000,000 SHU, the hotter the sauce, says Shell. For example, the bell pepper is lowest on the Scoville Scale at 0 SHU, which means it’s not spicy, says McManus. On the other hand, Pepper X is highest on the Scoville Scale at about 2.693 SHU, which means it’s “burn your internal organs” level of spicy.
The Scoville Scale establishes what Plovnick says is a “scientific, universal understanding of a breed of pepper” — in other words, a pepper’s Scoville rating isn’t subjective, so once it’s assigned a heat level, it’s a widely accepted fact. To determine a pepper’s Scoville rating, food labs conduct a formal test. “It’s done by diluting an extract of pepper in sugar water until a panel of trained tasters can no longer detect the heat,” says Shell. “The number of times it’s diluted dictates the measurement.”
Hot sauces, in addition to the peppers they’re made with, can get Scoville ratings, says McManus. But to do so, brands have to hire third-party labs, which many don’t want to pay for. That’s often why you don’t often see a Scoville rating listed on hot sauce bottles, says Chavez. Plus, the average consumer doesn’t know much about the Scoville Scale, so they can’t use SHU as a reference point.
Instead of a Scoville rating, brands may use a scale of fire illustrations or a thermometer to represent spice, while others label them mild, medium or hot. “Ultimately, the biggest giveaway is knowing the type of chili a hot sauce is made with,” says Chavez. You can find that listed on the bottle’s ingredient label and look it up to find its SHU rating before comparing it to the SHU rating of other peppers you know you can tolerate.
A hot sauce’s flavor is dictated by the ingredients it’s made with. The core ingredients are usually peppers, vinegar, salt and alliums like garlic, shallot and onion, says Chavez. From there, brands add other vegetables, fruits and spices in varying amounts, which impact a hot sauce’s overall flavor profile and make each type unique. For example, hot sauces made with fruits usually have a sweet or citrusy flavor, and those made with aromatics like spices and herbs can lean floral, says McManus.
Adding vinegar to hot sauce or fermenting its base are both ways to preserve the condiment, making it shelf-stable before it’s opened so you can find it in the pantry aisle, says Plovnick. Each preservation method creates a different flavor profile, too.
To make fermented hot sauces, some of the most popular being Tabasco and Sriracha, brands ferment chilis by putting them in a salt brine solution before blending them with all the other ingredients. Doing so somewhat cuts the pepper’s heat, making fermented hot sauces typically less spicy than vinegar-based varieties. The fermented chilis give hot sauce a complex, layered, umami flavor similar to what you’d expect from other fermented foods like pickles and kimchi, says Plovnick. Fermented hot sauces usually have vinegar in them, but not as much as vinegar-based hot sauces.
Vinegar-based hot sauces, like Cholula, aren’t made with fermented chilis. Instead, they fully rely on vinegar for preservation, says Plovnick. These hot sauces tend to have a bright, sharp, sour and tangy flavor, plus they’re usually spicier than fermented hot sauces.
Not all hot sauces are created equal. Some are thin and runny, some are semi-gritty and paste-like, or thick and pourable, says McManus. Texture and consistency are personal preferences, and often, what you’re putting the hot sauce on guides your picks. For example, I prefer topping a bowl of fried rice with a thick Sriracha drizzle, adding flavor and a picturesque finishing touch, but I like to shake a couple drops of runny Tabasco on chicken wings since it’s thin enough to blend into the sauce they’re coated in.
There are no hard-and-fast rules around which hot sauces you should pair with specific foods — ultimately, go with whatever you think tastes good. But traditionally, Plovnick recommends pairing vinegar-based hot sauces with fattier, richer foods, like a breakfast plate with scrambled eggs, hash browns and sausage. “Vinegar-based hot sauces will cut through some of that fat and make it easier to eat it all,” he says. On the other hand, fermented hot sauces tend to best compliment meats, fishes and marinades. “Fermented hot sauces have more aromatics so they have more depth of flavor, yet they won’t overpower these foods with vinegar,” says Plovnick.
A hot sauce’s color is dependent on the color of the pepper it’s made with. “Right off the bat, red tells you it’s going to be fiery hot,” says Chavez. “Green usually isn’t as spicy, and the color either comes from not as ripened chilis, or peppers like green jalapeños or serranos.”
Store hot sauce according to the directions printed on the bottle, says Shell. Most hot sauces are cooked prior to being bottled, and those need to be refrigerated once you open them. Hot sauces that are exclusively fermented, however, are typically shelf-stable for up to a year after opening them, although there’s no harm in refrigerating them if you prefer, he says.
If the brand recommends refrigerating its hot sauce once you open it, don’t be worried about the cold environment diluting its flavor or heat, says Chavez. Just take it out of the fridge about 30 minutes before use so it comes to room temperature, letting you taste its full heat and flavor profile.
Yes, hot sauce expires. Most options have an expiration date printed on their packaging, which you should follow. If unopened, hot sauces usually last about two years in a cool, dark place, experts told me.
We’ve all been there: you take a bite of food that’s way too spicy and instantly jump into panic mode because your mouth is on fire. But don’t reach for a glass of water, says Saldivar. The best way to neutralize spice is to drink milk or eat a dairy-based product like yogurt and cheese. He also recommends eating bread, which decreases the burning sensation in your mouth and on your tongue, and squeezing lemon or lime in your mouth, which neutralizes the spice.
Beyond water, you also shouldn’t drink alcohol right after eating something spicy. Alcohol amplifies spice, says Saldivar.
If you’re new to hot sauce, and/or spicy food in general, Saldivar recommends starting with mild varieties and working your way up to hotter options over time. The more you eat hot sauce, the more your body can tolerate it and more you can add to your food. On the other hand, if you stop eating hot sauce (and/or spicy foods) for a prolonged period, your tolerance can reverse, he says. “It’s like training for a marathon, then doing the race and then stopping running,” says Saldivar.
At NBC Select, we work with experts who have specialized knowledge and authority based on relevant training and/or experience. We also ensure that all expert advice and recommendations are made independently and with no undisclosed financial conflicts of interest.
I’m a reporter at NBC Select who has written about food and beverages for over five years, including nonalcoholic wine and spirits, olive oil, salt, chocolate and honey. To write this article, I coordinated a hot sauce taste test, during which the NBC Select staff tried over 30 varieties and provided feedback about each one. I also talked to five sources about what to consider while shopping for hot sauce and how to best pair it with different foods.
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