Ingredient of the Day: Hot Sauce

I like it hot-and I have a hot sauce for every occasion.

One entire shelf on the door of my refrigerator is dedicated to hot sauce. We love spicy food and I add a little bit of heat to almost every dish I make. Here are some of my favorites and how I use them:

Tabasco: I use this on the rare occasion that I eat eggs. I also love Tabasco in brothy soup.

Sriracha: I use this almost every week, and always have it in my fridge. I love the bottle because the writing is all in Korean and it features a creepy looking rooster. I use this in many things, above all Asian food. I usually stir in about a half a teaspoon anytime I use teriyaki sauce. I love it on lettuce wraps (see previous post). I also stir a bit of this into sweet barbecue sauce to create a more tangy flavor. A little bit on sushi also goes a long way. Adding a bit of Sriracha to a few tablespoons of mayo makes an awesome dip for fried seafood or crab cakes.

Tapatio: My go-to Mexican hot sauce. I use this on tacos, burritos, nachos…you name it. It is by far my favorite of any Mexican hot sauce because it adds amazing flavor as well as heat. My favorite (and most frequent use) of Tapatio is on my Mexican Shrimp Cocktail. (also in a previous post :)

Buffalo Wild Wings Sauces: One of my kids only eats hot wings. At least, I have never seen him order anything else in a restaurant. Every Christmas I buy him a 3 pack of wing sauce and we always keep some in the fridge. He tends to like the super hot flavors, but I usually stick to Medium or Asian Zing- but they are all wonderful! I’ll be posting my super-simple Hot Wing recipe this week-we just made them for 12 guests on Wednesday and they were fabulous.

Frank’s Hot Sauce: Another great hot sauce for making Buffalo Wings. I also love Frank’s on pizza as an alternative to jalapenos or crushed red peppers. Frank’s is also great in soup.

My Salsa. I canned 75 pints of salsa last August, and they are all gone as of today. We eat a lot of salsa here. My salsa recipe is also posted in this blog. I make a red roasted jalapeno and anaheim chile salsa, but we are all equal opportunity salsa eaters. I especially love green salsas during the hot summer months and especially on Flank Steak Tacos. Just this week I wrangled a new green salsa recipe from my friend Brandon which I’ll be trying soon. :)

I’m not sure if this is a blog post or a reminder to my future self why I have acid reflux. I guess I’ll just have to wait and find out.