Today I was out in my Urban Garden watering it and tending to my herbs.  Then I noticed that my Cayenne peppers were ripe.  I had about 25 peppers.  Besides the Cayenne peppers I had about 15 Jalapenos and Serranos.  What could I use 40 peppers for I asked?  Hot sauce.  This time I was going to make a bright red traditional sauce.  The cayenne peppers would be the base and I would add a few of the other peppers for flavor and spice.

The Urban Garden in action

Look at all of the ripe peppers.

Homemade Cayenne Hot Sauce

• 1/2 lb cayenne peppers
• 4-5 other peppers for spice and flavor – Yep each pepper supplies a nice flavor along with heat.
  • Below is a list of peppers that you could use for flavor and/or heat
    • Jalapenos add a nice flavor with a good kick if you pick them while they are small
    • Serranos add heat and freshness
    • Poblanos add a earthy flavor with very little heat
    • Habaneros add pure heat
• White Vinegar 1-2 cups.
• 3-4 tsp salt

Wash and cut off the stems of peppers.  Next add the peppers to the blender.  Then add the salt and enough white vinegar to cover the peppers.  This amount varies so it isn’t an exact measurement.  Sorry to all of you that love exact measurements.

Cover with vinegar

Blend for 2-3 minutes until it is smooth and bright red in color.

It is a tad bit foamy, but it is bright red, trust me.

Pour the mixture into a saucepan and bring to a boil.  Once at a boil, reduce and let simmer for 2o minutes.

Remove from the heat and let cool for a couple of minutes.  Then strain the sauce through a fine strainer to get rid of the large particles.

Strain to extract the spicy red sauce

Then pour into your favorite glass container.

The Sauce

I happen to have a old bottle that I sanitized in the dishwasher.  Make sure to either run the bottle through the dishwasher or boil it before filling.

The bottle was a lot bigger than I thought.

I need to develop some labels for my sauce.  It is very spicy.  Since I failed to water my garden daily, the direct sun baked the soil.  This left the plants without the moisture that they needed to grow big and tall.  Luckily this also starved the peppers giving them a crazy concentrated heat.  Almost as if the peppers knew that I was going to eat them and they wanted to pay me back for not watering them.

I love hot sauce.  It is quick and easy to make.  If you have a ton of peppers in your garden, maybe the gift of homemade hot sauce could be in your friends future.

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