The ghost pepper, or bhut jolokia, is perhaps the most famous super hot pepper in the world. It was the first pepper to crack 1 million Scoville heat units and held the title as world’s hottest pepper for around 7 years. Ghost peppers are often used to spice up Northern Indian cuisine in things like curries or chutneys, however ghost pepper hot sauce is its most known form in the west.
Like many of my hot sauce recipes, this one starts with dried chiles. Making hot sauce with dried peppers is just as easy as with fresh peppers, you just have to soak the peppers first. Of course, there are plenty of hot sauce styles you can go with as well. My recipe is a simple Louisiana style with a twist!
How To Make Ghost Pepper Hot Sauce
Ghost peppers come in three main colors: red, yellow, and chocolate. I’m using dry red peppers but any color will work in this recipe. Step one, place the dried ghost peppers in a bowl and pour over a cup of boiling water. Let sit for at least 30 minutes.
After a while you’ll notice the peppers have plumped up quite a bit. A standard Louisiana style hot sauce is simply the peppers and some vinegar. However as I like to get creative with my homemade hot sauces I added cherries for a fruity twist.
I love to add complementary ingredients to my homemade hot sauces. With my chipotle sauce I subbed some of the vinegar for grapefruit juice, and with my Carolina Reaper hot sauce I used carrot juice to balance the heat with sweet.
Place the ghost peppers, pitted cherries, and a cup of white vinegar in a blender. This is basically all the ingredients you need for my recipe, but feel free to add things like salt, garlic cloves, herbs or anything else you like. There is one more ingredient I add which is totally optional.
The next ingredient I use in this hot sauce is lecithin. Specifically, sunflower lecithin. Now, I know this sounds like some unknown chemical, but it is simply just a vegetable fat. Why do I add lecithin to hot sauce? Because lecithin is an emulsifier between fats and water, which will prevent the hot sauce from separating.
Now if you are a health food fan you may know that cherries are very low in fat. However as it is not 0 I will still use a little sunflower lecithin to prevent the final hot sauce from separating. I blend all the ingredients, then once it’s all near liquefied I add in the lecithin and blend again.
After blending the ghost pepper hot sauce for an extremely long time it’s time to strain. I use a fine mesh strainer because I like a thin, drippy sauce like Tabasco. If you don’t mind having bits of pepper and fruit in your hot sauce then feel free to skip this step.
When bottling a thin hot sauce, make sure to use a dripper insert. This will prevent a lot of the sauce from pouring out at once, which is something you definitely don’t want when using ghost pepper hot sauce. Seriously, just a few drops will do.
How To Use Ghost Pepper Hot Sauce
Other than dripping it on foods you want to make spicy, you can use this ghost pepper hot sauce as an ingredient in dishes. One of my favorite things to make with hot sauce is dips for things like beer battered onion rings or chicken tenders. Just mix the sauce with a little mayonnaise or sour cream and you have a quick and easy dip for all your deep fried party foods.
You can also use this ghost pepper hot sauce to add some spice to soups, chilis, and sauces.
Ghost Pepper Hot Sauce
Equipment
- 1 Blender
- 1 Bowl
- 1 Fine Mesh Strainer
Ingredients
- 7 Dried Ghost Peppers can also use fresh
- 1 cup White Vinegar 250 ml
- 1 cup Cherries pitted
- 1 tsp Sunflower Lecithin optional, to help with emulsification
Instructions
- In a bowl put your dry ghost peppers and pour over a cup (250 ml) of boiling water. Let sit for 30 minutes.
- Remove the peppers from the water and place into a blender. Add in the pitted cherries and the white vinegar. Blend thoroughly to liquefy.
- Optional: Add a tsp of lecithin to help the emulsification and then blend some more.
- Pour the hot sauce through a fine mesh strainer to remove particulate. If it seems to be going slowly then use a spoon to move the sauce in the strainer around, or spoon away any buildup.
- Use a small funnel and pour the ghost pepper hot sauce into small bottles. Add a dripper insert, cap, seal, and save for later.