5 Alarm Hot Sauce

I have been craving hot sauce something fierce lately. The hotter, the better actually. And since I found some wonderful dried ghost chilies at the West Side Market in Cleveland when I was there for a wonderful weekend with my girls, I thought, "let's try a hot sauce."

This is a wonderfully flavorful sauce that is sure to deliver some serious heat. There's a combination of fresh peppers, dried peppers, horseradish, and ground pepper so you're sure to get hit from the heat on all sides! It's not the hottest sauce I've ever had, but it's definitely no slouch in the heat department. But the full flavors of the rest of the ingredients add such a wonderful flavor that it tempts even those who can't handle heat to try and eat as much as they can.

This is a perfect recipe to bookmark for that end-of-summer pepper bounty. And if you don't have the ghost or piquin chilies, just kick up the amount of fresh peppers!



5 Alarm Hot Sauce

1 dried ghost chili
5 dried piquin chili peppers
7 habanero chilies
7 jalapeno chilies
4 serrano peppers
2 cups chopped carrots
1 1/2 cups chopped onion
10 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
1 tbsp lime juice
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp red wine vinegar
2 tbsp olive oil
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
1 tsp salt
1 tsp cracked brown mustard seeds (or mustard powder)
1 tsp turmeric
1/4 cup mango nectar or juice
1/2 tsp crushed red pepper
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
2 tbsp ground horseradish
1/2 cup roughly chopped cilantro

Place dried piquin chilies and ghost chili in a bowl of hot water for 20 minutes until rehydrated. Meanwhile, in a large saucepan, bring a few cups of water to boil. Add chopped carrots and onion and simmer for several minutes until soft. Add ghost chili, piquin chilies, and cooked carrots and onion to blender container. Add remaining ingredients, EXCEPT for cilantro, and puree until well combined. Pulse in cilantro. Allow to cool off in the fridge for several house and then ENJOY!