Go Back

Fermented Garden Hot Sauce

This hot sauce cranks up the heat a tad!
5 from 1 vote
Prep Time 15 minutes
Fermentation time 7 days
Total Time 7 days 15 minutes
Servings 8 jars

Equipment

  • quart size mason jar
  • glass fermentation weights
  • Blender
  • kitchen funnels
  • hot sauce bottles
  • food mill

Ingredients
  

  • 1 lb peppers of choice, I recommend half hot peppers (jalepeno, cayennes, habanero or serrano's!
  • 1 small onion
  • 2-3 cloves garlic
  • 1 tablespoon sea salt, pickling salt, or kosher salt (no table salt)
  • 2 cups filtered water, to combine with salt for brine
  • 1 lime

Instructions
 

  • Chop peppers, onions, and garlic. Layer them in a quart size mason jar. Pack them down as tightly as possible.
  • Warm water + salt on the stove just enough to dissolve salt. Cool to room temperature.
  • Add room temperature brine to jar and cover ingredients with a fermenting weight or something that can hold the contents under the brine.
  • Cover with a lid. I use a fermenting lid (or a pickle pipe) you can use any regular lid, but if it's not a fermenting lid, you will have to open it daily to let the pressure off.
  • Leave to ferment. I like the flavor of 5-7 days. You can go as little as 3 days, or as long as 2 weeks
  • Over a bowl, strain the contents through a strainer and set the brine aside.
  • Add solid contents to a blender and add 1/2 cup brine, plus the juice of a lime.
  • Blend and assess consistency. You can add more brine to make it thinner if you like.
  • Run through a food mill. This step is optional, but I like to run my hot sauce through a food mill to strain out the bulk of the seeds and skin. The result is a thinner hot sauce. You can skip this step if you prefer a chunkier hot sauce, it'll resemble more of a salsa consistency, with a hot sauce flavor of course.
  • Store in an airtight container in the fridge. Shake before use.

Notes

  • Do not use chlorinated tap water because chlorine can kill off the good bacteria needed for fermentation, use a filtered water.
  • Make sure you use enough salt. Too little salt allows bad bacteria or mold to take over.
  • Leave some headspace in the jar.
  • Make sure to use a weight so peppers stay submerged.
  • Don't open the lid too often. Opening it increases the chance of bad bacteria being introduced.