Mama Lin's Hot Sauce Recipe
As teenagers, we begged Ma to stop watching us eat. “I made it,” she’d say, “and I made you too.” And she watched. She watched how much we ate and modified recipes so we’d eat more. She watched which fruits fruited when and where and picked accordingly. She watched when peppers and daikon were in season and made seasonal hot sauce and dumplings for the best flavor, crunch, and color. She hunted for the “Yes Ma, it’s delicious” and “Oh Ma, you’re better than the restaurants” reassurances yes, but also for the slivers of possibility, improvement, and innovation. Nothing beats Ma’s cooking.
Growing up and to this day, most meals with Ma come with various rotating homemade condiments: fermented veggies, dipping sauces, hot sauces, and more. Every year, Ma has a new and improved hot sauce recipe.
An International Condiment
What hot sauces do you love? What hot sauces are currently in your fridge? What kinds do you love making, have tried making, or are curious about?
Hot sauce is one of the essentials in our kitchen. We have a few different varieties floating around at any time: the staple Sirarcha, American style hot sauce, Chinese style, Korean style, and as many different styles as we can find or make. Different regions have their own hot sauce versions, and I love trying them all. Ma has been making and sampling different hot sauces for as long as I can remember. Every year, the recipe changes. Visiting my grannies in Taiwan, their kitchens have diverse hot sauces for diverse occasions too.
Ma’s 2024 Hot Sauce
Here’s one of our current favorites. This recipe includes aromatic herbs and spices for a dynamic flavorful hot sauce recipe. Heat level can range from mild to painful, depending on which hot peppers you use.
Ingredients
- Herbs
- 1 stick of cinnamon
- 1 star anise
- 1 piece of licorice (about 1 tsp)
- 2 cloves
- 2 bay leaves
- ¼ tangerine peel (about 1 tsp)
- Peppers
- 1 cup fresh red chili peppers (washed and dried)
- ⅓ cup another chili pepper, fresh or dried (to make the flavor more complex. Ma loves spicy jalapeños; we love zingy Thai red peppers — use what grows near you!)
- Spices
- 3 slices ginger, minced
- 6 cloves garlic, minced
- 3 Tbsp 豆豉 douchi fermented black beans (find at Asian food stores, or add 1 Tbsp soy sauce)
- ½ tsp salt (or to taste)
- 1 tsp sugar
- 1 Tbsp Sichuan red peppers (if you have trouble procuring, substitute with freshly-ground black peppercorns)
- 3 Tbsp toasted black or white sesame seeds
- Liquids
- 1.5 cups extra light olive oil
- 3 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
- Toasted sesame oil
Instructions
- Make a quick oil infusion with your herbs. Heat olive oil on medium-low heat. Add herbs to the heated oil: cinnamon, star anise, licorice, cloves, bay leaves, tangerine peel. Stir until covered. Turn off heat and remove from the stove. Let herbs sit and infuse for fifteen minutes, then strain herbs from oil. Retain the oil infusion and discard the herbs.
- Toast sesame seeds by lightly heating a pan, then spreading a thin layer of seeds on top of the pan. Wait. When seeds start leaping around and smelling fragrant, keep stirring until they are brown on all sides, then remove from heat. Set aside to cool.
- Before handling fresh hot peppers, please see my important note of caution with safety tips below in the “Capsaicin Cautions” section.
- Now that you’ve read my note of caution, remove tops from fresh hot peppers. Keep the seeds if you like crunch and more heat; remove the seeds if you prefer a smoother texture and less spiciness. Chop by hand or pulse in a food processor, then set aside. (I prefer a crunchier texture, so I like to chop by hand and keep all the seeds. You can pulse until fine, if you prefer a paste-like consistency.)
- Reheat the oil infusion on medium-low heat. Stir in peppers. Keep stirring until their water evaporates, they release their aroma, and the oils turn red. This can take 20–30 minutes, so be patient! Keep stirring. Don’t burn the peppers.
- Slowly stir in spices: ginger, garlic, fermented black beans, salt, sugar, Sichuan peppers, sesame, and other desired spices until combined.
- Pour in sesame oil and vinegar. The vinegar will mostly evaporate, due to heat. Mix well.
- Turn off heat and remove from stove. Let cool. Mix one last time, then transfer into a clean glass jar. Cap, label, and enjoy!
This yields about half a liter of hot sauce. Store refrigerated. The flavor will deepen over time, like any other infusion. I typically taste test after 1 week and then start adding it to our condiments rotation within 1–2 weeks.
When it’s time to savor your hot sauce, use clean, dry utensils to remove what you wish to eat from the jar. Serve in a small bowl with meals as a condiment. Enjoy on top of rice or veggies. Stir into noodles alone or with freshly chopped scallions. This combination is particularly delicious with Asian food, easy to make, and will sit in the fridge, if kept clean and cold, for up to a year—if you don’t gobble it up first!
What Peppers Can You Use in a Hot Sauce Recipe?
Hot sauce can include peppers from various genus, species, and plant families. Some notable ones include hot peppers (Capsicum annuum), Sichuan pepper (Zanthoxylum simulans), and Black pepper (Piper longum).
Hot Peppers │ Capsicum annuum (Solanaceae, nightshade family)
Capsicum annuum includes sweet peppers, hot peppers, cayenne, paprika, and pimentos. The peppers are the fruits, which can range along the rainbow spectrum from red to purple and everywhere in between! Flavors can range from sweet, to a gentle heat, to a beastly heat that can make you cry. Capsicum’s heat comes from the phytochemical capsaicin. Out of the three peppers here, you will most commonly find cayenne in topical and internal preparations for its warming, digestive, and circulatory-stimulating qualities in tinctures, liniments, washes, salves, vinegars, and other blends—like fire cider! Here in the USA, you’ll most likely grow some type of Capsicum hot pepper, as opposed to Sichuan pepper or black pepper. Capsium grows well with heat, a little water, and lots of sun.
Sichuan Peppers │ Zanthoxylum simulans (Rutaceae, citrus family)
花椒 Hua jiao, or Sichuan pepper, has many common names, which is characteristic of beloved plants that have traveled through diverse regions and been used in diverse ways over time. 四川 Sichuan is a province in southwestern China famous for giant pandas and mouth-watering spicy cuisine, especially Mala hot pot (麻辣火鍋 mala huo guo), which features Sichuan pepper. 麻辣 Mala translates as numb-spicy, which Sichuan pepper excels at. What herbalist Lisa Ganora calls “tingly alkamides” are the special phytoconstituents that lend Sichuan pepper, Echinacea and Spilanthes their characteristic numbing sensations with antimicrobial, analgesic (pain-relieving), circulatory stimulating, and other properties. Sichuan peppers’ seed husk, or pericarp, is used in food and medicine. Sichuan pepper includes Zanthoxylum simulans, bungeanum, piperitum, and other species, differing in color, spiciness, and other flavor particularities. Sichuan pepper’s heat comes from the phytochemical hydroxy-alpha sanshool. It warms digestion, moves blood and qi to stop pain, and tonifies Fire.
Black Peppers │ Piper longum (Piperaceae, pepper family)
Piper longum includes black, green, and white peppers. Black pepper is the dried then cooked unripe fruit. Green pepper is just dried unripe fruit. White pepper are the seeds of the ripe fruits. Red peppercorns are made from ripe peppercorn drupes preserved in brine and vinegar. They are a common staple in most kitchens! The phytochemical piperine is responsible for much of black pepper’s spice. Black pepper features as a spicy warming aromatic digestive in formulas around the world, including Unani Tibb Arabic honey (black pepper, turmeric, and ginger), and Ayurvedic preparations like golden milk, chai, and digestive Trikatu (black pepper, ginger, and long pepper).
Capsaicin Cautions
The first time I made Capsicum spp. hot sauce, I made the terrible mistake of washing my hands and then splashing my face. My eyelids tingled, quickly escalating from uncomfortable to unbearable. Frantically splashing more water onto my face, I just made the burning worse, spreading capsaicin oil from my hands to all over my face. Do not do this!
Capsaicin elicits the “hot” sensation from Capsicum spp. hot peppers. Capsaicin and spice level is measured via the subjective Scoville scale via Scoville heat units (SHU or HU). Capsaicin can increase digestive fire and help move a recipe or formula along. In higher doses or with higher heat units, capsaicin can make your mouth, belly, bum, or skin burn. This heating sensation can help topical applications such as liniments, salves, or oils move old achy tissues or injuries. Including some spiciness in foot soaks or baths during colder seasons or with colder injuries can help warm the area, and move stagnation. Capsaicin gives hot peppers the spice that we love— but use with care!
Take additional precautions when handling hot peppers at all stages of the hot sauce making process, from gathering to processing. Wear at least two layers of latex or nitrile gloves when processing hot peppers. Wash your hands with soap and water afterwards. Do not touch your face, eyes, or other mucus membranes for several hours after processing hot peppers.
Herbal Actions & Uses
Hot peppers are warming diaphoretics, circulatory stimulants, and digestive stimulants. They can help bring on a sweat, move blood back into boggy or stagnant tissues, and wake up digestive fire.
“Let’s spice things up!” Spiciness shakes up old ideas, emotions, and habits. Spiciness re-enlivens what’s stuck. Spiciness can kick a formula or recipe from bland to exciting, perhaps sometimes even inducing tears of pain, if overdone.
Be careful with hot spices if you or a hot-sauce-loving friend are already too “hot” or inflamed, or thoroughly exhausted or deficient. Mix and match with other flavor friends: sweet, salty, and sour. Add a little spoonful of hot sauce to meals, then build from there!
A little goes a long way. Add a little hot pepper to foods, tinctures, liniments, oils, salves, or other preparations to infuse a bit of heat, excitement, and movement into your mix. Stimulate digestion. Stimulate circulation. Stimulate ideas. Stimulate flow.
About the Other Herbs in this Recipe
Clove, Star Anise, & Cinnamon
Clove, star anise, and cinnamon are all warming carminatives that can help support healthy, easeful digestion.
Orange Peel
Orange peel is also a digestive, carminative — and “qi-regulator” in East Asian medicine, meaning that it helps promote the smooth flow of emotions and other qi through the body.
Ginger & Garlic
Ginger and garlic are both pungent herbs that excel at supporting immune health and easeful digestion. These popular culinary herbs have antiviral and anti-inflammatory properties. Licorice
Licorice is a harmonizing adaptogen that can help different flavors and herbal properties synergize.
Bay Leaves
Bay leaves can help promote healthy digestion and aid respiratory health in culinary preparations.
Spice Up Your Life
I love playing with spices and experimenting with what’s in season, although my kitchen skills are middling to average— not stellar like Ma’s. Everyone love’s Ma’s cooking. She fed my friends growing up, and she still spoils us every time we visit. I have so much to learn.
What spicy foods did your ancestors indulge in? What flavors are indigenous to your familial history? Which hot sauces make your mouth water and gut sing? What recipes do your elders hold? Which strands of the past do you carry forth into the future? How are you innovating in sauces, flavors, and life?
Keep a little jar of hot sauce in the fridge and on the table. Even in the dead of winter, lick up a little heat and remember what enlivens you. Remember the deliciousness of sunshine summery radiance from this pulsing hot pepper.
Here are a few frequently asked questions about homemade hot sauce…
Can I use other vinegar types in this recipe?
Yes, you can substitute balsamic vinegar for white vinegar, apple cider vinegar, or even fresh lime juice.
What can I add to this recipe if I want a spicier sauce?
If you want heat, then use hot hot peppers! Pepper X, Carolina Reaper, and the Ghost Pepper have all won contests for “hottest peppers,” but they might be too intense. I prefer asking local farmers at the farmer’s market what they might recommend for tastiest peppers, favorite peppers, hottest peppers, sweetest peppers, and other peppery recommendations—then purchasing or growing spicy local variants. If you find a hot pepper that you like, then try growing it!
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