I always wanted to make my own legit cayenne pepper sauce. I know its so easy to grab a bottle of Crystal at the store, but I wanted to make my own! The peppers growing the back of the yard were really starting to pop, so I decided today is the day. This didn’t result in an abundance of sauce, but enough to know if I should do it again or stick to Frank’s.
If you want to skip right to it, go ahead and click on that recipe above. If you want to read about it, come on along for the ride. I tried it, I took pictures, let’s see how it goes!
The Prep Table
The hardest part of this recipe was waiting for the cayenne peppers to grow. The second hardest part was watching MrsForensicBBQ water them while I was inside. This one calls for some fresh garlic, some garlic powder, salt and white vinegar. And some homegrown peppers. I had a feeling when I was cutting these up that it was going to be considerably hotter than the store-bought. And I was A-OK with that.
Cut the ends of the peppers and put the ingredients in a pot on the stove. I didn’t do any de-seeding or rib scraping from the peppers at all. I wasn’t going to mind any of the heat that this would bring the mixture and I knew I was bound to strain later.
Bring all that to a boil and let it simmer for about 20 minutes. MrsForensicBBQ was home during this cook, and I was waiting to hear the complaints from the living room that the air was spicy. I didn’t really get too much complaining (about the spice, anyway ?) – I know this next step had me coughing though.
The Process
Time to reduce all this down to a liquid. I dumped the pot into the food processor and let the blades do the work. Because of such a small quantity, this was kind of a pain.
I let it go for a little bit standing up, tilted right, tilted left, bounced around a little. Really should’ve either used the Bullet blender or made a larger quantity. In hindsight, that Bullet blender would’ve worked exceptionally well.
After you’ve done your best, I poured the solution through a mesh strainer to get that typical Crystal-like water consistency. Put it back in the pot and brought it to a boil and called it a day!
The Result
Usually, I love The Result part to show you how it all turned out. This one is underwhelming because it’s just a red sauce in a glass jar ?
After the mesh strainer, I reserved the cayenne relish to use in a later recipe. I know my favorite sandwich condiment is the Jersey Mike’s Cherry Pepper Relish, so maybe I’ll make a version of that? (I didn’t, see next week!) Either way, here’s what I ended up with:
This was one of those – was the grind worth the result? As of the day I’m writing this, I’m not entirely sure because I was waiting to let this chill in the fridge before I tried it.
But as I’m typing this – weeks removed from when I actually did it – stay tuned for next week when I put it to the test! (It was FANTASTIC. I love these small-batch cooks).
The Recipe
Cayenne Pepper Sauce
Ingredients
- 15 Cayenne Peppers
- 1.5 Cups White Vinegar
- 3 Cloves Garlic Minced
- 1 Tsp Salt
- 1 Tsp Garlic Powder
Instructions
- Remove stems/ends from peppers. I didn't de-rib nor de-seed the peppers as I like spicy, so to each their own.
- Add all ingredients to a small saucepan and bring to a boil
- Reduce to simmer for 20 minutes
- Add result to a blender/food processor. My FP was way too large for this recipe, so I had to tilt/rotate the damn thing to get it to puree. When you think you're done, keep doing it.
- When it's nice and saucy, pour it through a mesh strainer into the saucepan. I reserved the thick for future projects. I brought the thin back to boil to incorporate flavors.
- Place result into a jar and refrigerate until use. Highly recommend doubling/tripling the recipe – as the result of this quantity leaves more to be desired.