Hot Sauce

A fiery legend steeped in American ingenuity, Buffalo wings are always a good idea. 

This spicy Yemeni cilantro sauce is fiery hot with chile peppers, but it is also aromatic with spices and herbaceous notes of cilantro and parsley.

Chili oil is a Chinese pantry staple that's easy to make at home. 

Here is my super bougie restyling of an everyday Ghanaian hot chile condiment. My bet is that once you’ve made it, you’ll be shouting at your West African friends because no one told you about it before. Until now, you thought XO sauce solved everything. Until now, you thought sambal belacan was the only smoked fish dip the world needed. But now, you’ve realized: I Shito, therefore I am. This recipe is luxurious, it is decadent, it is rich and textured for lavish enjoyment. Right here is where hot pepper sauce dreams comes true.

Adding olive oil to this hot sauce recipe lends it body and mellows some of the heat.

Use this hot sauce as a condiment or mix in additional aromatics like grated garlic and ginger to make a marinade for meat. This recipe is from Gunpowder, an Indian restaurant in London.

Unlike the usual table salsa, salsa de morita is more like a paste to be used as a spread for cemitas and other sandwiches. The combination of dark, medium-heat chiles and piloncillo gives this salsa a flavor reminiscent of a spicy-sweet barbecue sauce.

Serve this spicy-sweet sauce with thick-cut fried potato wedges, or use it as a glaze for pan-seared chicken thighs.

Splash liberally on fried eggs, toss with grilled veg, or spread on a sub.

This easy recipe gives you caramel sauce anytime you want it. Use it to drizzle over ice cream, pancakes, or into your morning mug of coffee.

Add this harissa to your next tomato sauce or try it with our Roast Chicken with Harissa and Schmaltz.

Harissa, the basic flavoring agent in Tunisian cuisine, is extremely versatile. Use it as a condiment for grilled meat or fish, add it to roasted vegetables, or stir into stews and soups. We particularly like it with couscous or rice. Adjust the amount of heat by increasing or reducing the number of chiles. Just remember, it is meant to be hot!

This spiced-up blend is perfect for dipping and also serves as the ultimate multipurpose sauce for chicken, beef, pork, and seafood.

This is more than just hot sauce. The funky, fruity blend can sear your tongue, but in a pleasant tingling way that allows you to still taste the layers of flavors. You can use this the way you use bottled hot sauce—for buttery sauces, soups, eggs—you’ll find that it just makes everything taste so much better.

Every family has a recipe that is a well-kept secret. This one, created by my aunt Marcela, is ours. It took some major coaxing to convince her to let me in on the details. Chile-lovers, this is for you! Yellow chiles are left whole and are meant to be eaten in between bites of tacos or any grilled dish. If you want to get adventurous, try dipping sushi in the spicy lime-soy sauce.

The smoked salmon gives this sauce great texture and is also a wonderful flavor complement to the smokiness of the chile mulato. Try the sauce on pasta or with a char-grilled chicken breast.

Serve this over rice, which will soak up the rich cream sauce. This dish is for the spicy-lover in you; if you want to prepare a milder version for guests or kids, you can use just the adobo sauce that accompanies the canned chipotles, and save the chiles for when you are preparing it for yourself. They’ll last for months in a covered container in the fridge.

A good all-purpose fresh chile sauce, one that will keep for a couple of weeks in the refrigerator. Hot but flavorful; great for bland foods, such as Hainanese Chicken Rice (page 275).

Still fiery, but mellower than raw chile sauces (and, of course, somewhat more work). Incredible on grilled chicken. This will keep fairly well, but because of the lime juice it is definitely at its best when fresh; thus I keep the quantity small. Information on Asian fish sauces like nam pla is on page 500.

The counterpart to Green Chile Sauce (opposite) and a darn good sauce on its own served with meat and fish. Brick red New Mexico chiles give this sauce great color and a deep roasted earthy flavor.