Serrano Pepper Hot Sauce
A copycat recipe of our favorite hot sauce, made with peppers from our garden.
Servings: 16 ounces
Equipment
- Cutting Board
- Knife
- Skillet
- Wooden spoon
- Food processor and/or blender
- Glass jar(s) or bottle(s) of your choice
Ingredients
- 1 Tbsp olive oil
- 2 medium yellow onions, chopped (about 2 cups)
- 6-8 Serrano peppers, chopped (about 1/2 cup)
- 8 fresh garlic cloves, peeled and minced (about 3-4 Tbsp)
- 2 inches fresh ginger, peeled and minced (about 2 Tbsp)
- 1 cup distilled water
- 3/8 cup distilled white vinegar
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp black pepper
Instructions
- To get started, chop the yellow onions and serrano peppers with a knife on a cutting board. The chop doesn't have to be perfect here, the mixture will end up being pureed after it's cooked a bit. (If you are sensitive to hot peppers, you may elect to wear gloves for this part.)
- While you have your cutting board and knife out, you can peel the garlic cloves and ginger, and mince those. Set them aside for now - they don't cook for as long as the onions and peppers.
- Preheat a skillet with olive oil on medium heat. Add the chopped onions and peppers. They will cook for 15-20 minutes or so on medium-low heat until they are tender. Stir them every few minutes to make sure they don't burn.
- When the onions and peppers are almost done, add the garlic and ginger to the pan. Also, add the salt and pepper. Cook for just a few more minutes. Remove from heat.
- Put the onion/pepper/garlic/ginger mixture into your food processor (or blender) with the water and vinegar to puree the mixture. I ended up doing the food processor first and then the blender for the final step because the food processor gets it all pureed and then the blender makes it even more smooth. Depending on your appliances, you may be able to use just the food processor or just the blender. An immersion blender may also work.
- Taste. If you feel like it needs anything else, you can put back in the skillet and add whatever you think it needs. If the consistency seems too runny, you can cook it down some more to thicken it. If it seems too thick, you can add more water and vinegar in ratios equal to the recipe (not quite 1 part vinegar to 2 parts water.) Since I didn't write or test this to be a canning recipe, you can be flexible with the ingredients. It's going to get stored in the refrigerator and/or freezer.