Homemade Hot Sauce (Similar to Cholula)
Check out the comments section of this post, people have some great recommendations 🙂
**One final update!**
I’ve noticed the hot sauce gets tastier with age. If you can, let it chill for a few days before use. Keep in mind this will not be thick like normal hot sauce. Most of them use thickeners.
**UPDATE 2** (Final Recipe)
I think this is the closest I will get to actual cholula. It is not identical, but satisfies the craving for Cholula, and improves on it by adding heat. This recipe has updated measurements and an updated Vinegar. (I love apple cider vinegar in it, but it is definitely further from cholula).
New recipe amounts:
Ingredients
- 1 cup distilled white vinegar
- 2+ T of Dried Pequin Peppers (Ground)
- 4 Dried Arbol peppers (seeds removed)
- 1 cup water
- 1 t Garlic Powder
- 1 T Onion Powder
- Salt to Taste
Blend all ingredients, and taste, add more heat as desired. A friend taste tested this batch for me this weekend and claimed “I like it better than cholula!”
*From here, I will probably move on to new types of hot sauces, as this one feels like a perfect combo for what I was trying to achieve.*
**UPDATE**
From my research I’ve gathered most hot sauces use a white distilled vinegar, so if you want it truer to taste, use that. I only use apple cider.
So Cholula hot sauce has got to be my favorite hot sauce of all time. However, it’s very expensive, and I prefer to know exactly what I’m putting in my body! I go through it like water when I do have some, and it’s not as hot as I’d like. But the flavor is perfect!
I finally decided, DUH make it myself.
This is a recipe that will be updated as I make new batches and improve the flavor! It’s an ongoing experiement.
For my first batch
Ingredients
- 1 cup apple cider vinegar
- 2+ T of Dried Pequin Peppers (Ground)
- 1 and half whole Dried Arbol peppers (seeds removed)
- 1/2 cup water
- 1 t Garlic Powder
- 1 T Onion Powder
- 2 Roma Tomatoes chopped
- I also added like 1 T of Fresh Onion (I had some scraps lying around) and 1 t of Cilantro (I also had this lying around
- Salt to Taste
Directions
- In a blender combine all ingredients and liquify. Taste, and add more peppers as desired for heat. Also add salt as desired.
This version is very strong in the vinegar. Which cholula is, but it def has something missing. It seems like the vinegar taste is too prominent. Its spicier than regular cholula (which is what i want)… but still not unbearable. I will probably do more research to see if someone else has unlocked the cholula mystery.
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Thank you for this; made this and added a little over double the garlic to make it more like the garlic cholula version and turned out a little more spicy, but we like it that way. Thanks again!
Excellent! I’m glad someone tried it! Yea when I make it I tend to eat way to much of it and it burns my mouth right out, but it’s nice 🙂
Yay!! haven’t tried it yet but have a good feeling about this 😀 I’m from Sweden and finding Cholula here is a pain, so very grateful for your efforts and sharing!
I’m excited you’re trying it!! I’ll say that it definitely isn’t QUITE like cholula, especially since it isn’t thick – but it personally satisfied the craving without the expensive price tag
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You should try fermenting it. I bet that’s the missing flavor you need, that’s what I will be doing.
Ooo – let me know how that turns out. How are you going about fermenting it?
I think you need celery seed to be more cholula like.
Never thought of it, great suggestion though!
You will find it is the vinegar that makes the difference. All hot sauce manufactures use a vinegar that is unique to their brand. Tabasco is very guarded to how their vinegar is mixed. Even pickling companies like Hines are protective of their batch.
Good point, do you have any vinegar suggestions?
Hi there,
I definitely agree that White Vinegar rather then Apple Cider Vinegar is the way to go.
I use fresh chillies, rather then dried. Here in Australia I grow Thai chillies, they are spot on for flavor and heat.
As an added suggestion, I add a good tablespoon of Smoked Paprika to my hot sauce and sometimes add a teeny tiny amount of Xanthan Gum ( dissolved in water) to make it saucier and last longer (ie. not a runny pour). I blitz the chillies, Fresh Garlic ( 6-7 cloves),Salt, Smoked Paprika, Vinegar and Water in a Food Processor. Then I gently heat the sauce in a saucepan ( never letting it boil). When the sauce is room temp, I add the dissolved Xanthan Gum and blitz all together to combine it well into the sauce and leave it to settle for 30 mins before bottling in a sterile bottle.
For me, the marked difference is fresh ingredients – Fresh Chillies, Fresh Garlic and the smokiness of the Paprika brings it all together nicely.😊
I would love to use some fresh chili’s if I had access to them! I have xantham gum lying around, but I never use it or some reason, the runny poury-ness never bothers me I guess. It does make me end up using more though, and burning my mouth X)
Well, I tried the original recipe, but…I had the Chile de Arbol, but no pequin chilies. I’d did have some dried chipotle peppers, though. So my variant had four dried, seeded Chipotle chilies instead. Also, I didn’t have white vinegar and used white wine vinegar (yes, there is a difference between the two). It is good, with a nice finishing heat. I’ve got to get me some pequin chilies.
Ya Pequin peppers def affect the taste! Chipotle eh? So your hot sauce must’ve been a little smokey. Sounds good 🙂
Cholula does not have any artificial preservatives. Read the ingredients again. The only possible preservative is the salt. The xanthan gum is a natural, plant derived thickener.
True! No *artificial* ingredients. When a company lists “spices” however – it can be pretty much anything. Luckily it’s not MSG (which CAN be the case in the listing of spices) as I have emailed the company directly to ask.
Personally, I like knowing every ingredient thats going in my body before I ingest it, and it saves a few bucks too 😉
Salt and vinegar both inhibit bacterial colonization. Hot sauce is a pretty inhospitable environment to spoilage organisms, and if you were to make large batches you could can in a sealed jar in a boiling water bath. This will add another dimension of preservation as the heat will cook/kill almost everything. Salt, vinegar (acid) and heat will be your trifecta in preservation and will remain good on the shelf for years … refrigerate after opening. I look forward to making this recipe and will most definitely ferment it. Probably will have to ferment before the addition of vinegar, lacto-bacillis is the bug that ferments kimchi, kraut and most vegetables … tabasco too I believe. This is present as surface flora on most vegetables and will colonize in the presence of salt. The salt will hold back other rot organisms from colonizing so I suspect ferment vegetable matter in salt and water, when then that is done add the other ingredients. Ferment will work best in a 75-90 degree environment and should be done in a week or two, you can stop any time you want, the vinegar and heat will kill the ferment so dont feel you need a full fermentation. Just get it as sour as you want and arrest with vinegar. My education is in winemaking so I applied that to this.
This is my second attempt and I am pretty sure I got the ingredients right. It tastes VERY close to the Original. it may need a little tweaking. If you come up with something closer, please let me know.
This sauce probably rates about 10 000 to 15 000 on the Scoville scale (about the same as Tabasco sauce) and is great on eggs or pizza. Not too too hot but lots of flavour.
1 1/2 cup water
½ cup of apple cider vinegar
½ cup distilled white vinegar
1 heaping teaspoon garlic powder
1 heaping Table spoon onion powder
1 teaspoon paprika
1 heaping teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon of salt (or to taste)
4 Arbol Peppers or sub 1 heaping teaspoon of Cayenne Pepper
10 drops of liquid smoke or liquid hickory
10 fresh Pequin Peppers De-seeded (prob 2 + Tblsp dry)
½ to a whole roasted red bell pepper (skin off)
¼ tsp xanthan gum in 2 Tblsp of cold water.
Add all ingredients except xanthan gum in a small pot and heat on medium to medium low for 25-30 minutes. Do not let it boil.
Remove from heat and blend on highest setting for 2 minutes. Add xanthan gum/water mixture to sauce in blender and blend another minute.
Pour back in rinsed pot (don’t let it sit in a plastic blender) and let cool to room temperature. Refrigerate over-night then bottle in sterilized receptacle and keep refrigerated.
What a great recipe!