Home Made Chilli Sauce
A few quick notes on making chilli sauce and rough recipe that may give you a start…
We have now made a number of batches of different sauces. Some of them are incredible, though we haven’t yet got to the point of following the same recipes – just experimenting and enjoying the results!
My first advice with chilli sauce is as the same for most things: just give it a go! You will find that as you experiment you will soon figure out what works and what doesn’t and what you like and don’t.
1) Base
For starters, we either used onion or tomato as a base to the sauce.
2) Chillis
This determines the heat – the hotter the chilli, the hotter the sauce, but you want to make sure you have a good quantity to get the flavour.
3) Vinegar
Most sauces use a fair amount of vinegar – the type will have a huge bearing on the flavour. White, Dark, Malt, Kombucha, White Wine, Apple Cider, Balsamic – choices choices!
4) Other stuff
Salt, Sugar, Spices – the variety is limitless!
As an alcoholic I used to use a spreadsheet for brewing alcohol. I have adapted this for Kombucha, Chilli sauces and other recipe attempts. If you would like to try this, let us know.
A simple spreadsheet can help you work out what flavours work and what doesn’t. You can try two batches the same but adjust one ingredient and record the results. Very quickly you will refine the recipe to what you like and the adjustments get smaller and smaller until you think it’s perfect. Then you just adjust for the quantity.
Starter recipe (Tomato Base)
- 100ml Vinegar (we use our own Kombucha vinegar)
- 100ml Tomato puree or tomatoes
- ½ onion
- 10 large chillies (we used Naga Monster)
- 1 tsp paprika
- ½ – 1 tsp salt
- ½ tsp Bragg Sea Kelp
- ¼ tsp ginger powder
If using white or wine vinegar you may find it too bitter so some honey, apple concentrate or sugar may be what you like. Be aware that sugar decreases the heat intensity.
Options (try one at a time)
- Dash Worcestershire sauce
- Dash Fish Sauce
- Dash Soy Sauce
- Spring Onions
- Garlic
- Spices (i.e. Tumeric, Mixed, Cardamon, Cloves, Nutmeg, Cinnamon)
- Substitute the tomato for 2 onions for totally different flavour – but will likely need to add more paprika or similar.
We put in the Thermomix for about 15 minutes on less than 80º after blending. If you would like it thicker consistency, this will need to be adjusted.
Make sure you let it cool to make sure the glass bottles don’t break from the heat – or gentled heat the bottle beforehand. Fast changes in temperature can crack glass. Use a funnel to decant.
The below two sauces were our last attempt: the left is a tomato base, the right hand one is onion base, with a lot of extra spices!
Previously, we have made yellow sauces with yellow chillies, apple concentrate and turmeric. INCREDIBLE!
All the children have tried their own at various times – and all were so tasty – (and stinking hot 🤪🔥). One night, at around 10pm, 3 of us staggered out of a caravan in shorts & no shirts. It was 1ºC outside but we had been in a confined space with three batches on the boil for hours. Continual breathing in chilli fumes taste testing left us sweating to say the least!
The night was incredibly memorable and fun – and the sauces were amazing!
Trying to pick a favourite was virtually impossible…
We would love to hear your experiences or tips – even better, come & share!
In future we hope to have some ‘workshops’ where we can all experiment together and then use the sauces on some kind of meal…