The Best Chilli Sauce You Will Ever Taste
I know, I know. What’s this got to do with chocolate I hear you ask? Well to be honest very little, other than chilli and chocolate come from the same part of the world and as Kath The Ordinary Cook pointed out, they do go very well together. I was recently asked for my homemade chilli sauce recipe and as it’s one of my own and very dear to my heart I have decided to go against my own rules and put it on my chocolate blog. Read on to find out how to make the best chilli sauce you will ever taste.
Alberto Locoto
We grow Alberto’s Locoto which are hardier than most and we grow them outdoors. They are particularly good for making chilli sauce as they are large and thick fleshed. Unfortunately we didn’t manage to get them ripe this year so we picked them green and have been waiting for them to ripen in our not so warm house. Today was the day we could wait no longer and luckily many of them were nice and red.
Homemade Chilli Sauce
My chief taster helped out a bit with this chilli sauce, he got the fun job of deseeding all the chillies! Once that job is done, the rest is pretty straightforward. It’s mostly a case of adding everything to the pan, boiling it up and then blending.
You can make this sauce milder by using more red peppers and less chillies. The red peppers give the sauce a wonderful colour and help to flavour it. The quantities I have used make for a light ketchup type consistency, but you can make it thicker or runnier by adding more or less arrowroot. I’ve also made a runnier version of this sauce using our yellow Fatalii chillies and yellow sweet peppers – it worked well but was very very hot so we only use it for cooking. My tongue is now burning from tasting the sauce – not the hottest sauce in the world, but you generally don’t need a great deal of it! In my humble opinion, this is the best chilli sauce ever – good and hot, but also flavoursome.
The Best Chilli Sauce You Will Ever Taste – The Recipe
Homemade Chilli Sauce
Prep Time
1 hr
Cook Time
1 hr
Heat processing
20 mins
Total Time
2 hrs
The best chilli sauce you will ever taste. A medium hot chilli sauce, flavoured and sweetened with red peppers.
Course: Jams, Chutneys etc
Cuisine: British
Keywords: chilli sauce, red peppers, hot sauce, chillies, ketchup,
Servings: 8 150ml bottles
Ingredients
- 2 lb hot red Locoto chilli (or other thick fleshed chillies) - halved and deseeded or other thick fleshed chillies
- 2 sweet red peppers
- 8 oz shallots - peeled and quartered
- 8 large cloves of garlic - peeled and quartered
- 1 large cooking apple unnamed Cornish variety - peeled, cored and and cut into pieces
- ½ pt water
- 3 bay leaves
- several sprigs of thyme
- ½ pt red wine vinegar + 1 tbsp
- 1 tsp sea salt.
- 2 level tsp arrowroot
Instructions
- Skin the red peppers by grilling them until the skins are black and blistered then put them in a plastic bag for 5 mins before removing the skins - it's still messy but a lot easier to skin this way.
- Put the chillies, red peppers, shallots, garlic, apple, water, bay leaves and thyme into a large saucepan.
- Bring to the boil and simmer for ½ an hour.
- Add all but the tbsp of red wine vinegar and salt.
- Simmer for about another ½ hour.
- Remove bay leaves and thyme.
- Purée mixture using a hand-held blender.
- Mix the arrowroot with the reserved tbsp of red wine vinegar until blended.
Stir this into the chilli mixture along with the salt and simmer for a further 3 mins until sauce has thickened slightly and is the consistency of tomato ketchup.
- Pour into 6-8 clean smallish sterilised glass bottles and cap.
- Heat process by placing bottles into a large saucepan filled with enough water so that bottles are ¾ covered. Bring water up to boiling point and simmer for 20 mins.
Recipe Notes
Stored in a cool dark place, this should last for at least 18 months, but keep in fridge once opened.
Update October 2014
The quantities given make 6-8 bottles depending on size. The photographs are for a much larger batch I recently made with a friend.
- Celia over at Fig Jam and Lime Cordial has made a version of this recipe you might want to look at.
- And Jac over at Tinned Tomatoes has a recipe for sweet chilli jam.
Homemade Chilli Sauce. PIN IT.
Kath
11th November 2009 at 9:19 pmBrilliant, thanks Choclette, I will show this to my husband and hint at trying to grow Alberto’s Locoto next year, they sound good. The sauce sounds very good, we still have a pile of our chillies left so will try to find the time to give this a go. Thank you for making an exception to post this on your lovely blog.
Kath
Lucie
12th November 2009 at 10:09 pmoooo what a great idea, this would make a great gift.
Hapi
15th November 2009 at 1:00 pmhello… hapi blogging… have a nice day! just visiting here….
Choclette
15th November 2009 at 5:11 pmNice to have you drop by Hapi.
MaryMoh
28th November 2009 at 3:22 pmwow….beautiful colour of chili sauce. I would love it mixed into fried noodles…mmm… or as dipping for vegetable fritters. Thanks for sharing
Choclette
6th December 2009 at 3:22 pmThanks for taking a look MaryMoh – the sauce is quite a hot one but now I’ve got used to it I sometimes have it on my toast for breakfast. I love the colour too – although the chillies are red, it’s the red pepper that really gives it such a beautiful shade of orangey red.
figjamandlimecordial
29th January 2010 at 8:24 pmThat looks WONDERFUL! The colour reminds me of those fabulously hot peri peri sauces we get from the Portugese chicken restaurants. Thanks for the link, Choclette, I’ll bookmark this for when our chilli bush really starts producing.
Cheers, Celia
Celia @ Fig Jam and Lime Cordial
21st April 2010 at 7:23 amChoclette, I’ve just made five bottles of this sauce – it’s a wonderful recipe, thank you! I used two apples instead of one, and quite different chillies – will get it up on my blog soon. Thanks again! Celia
Choclette
22nd April 2010 at 5:19 amOh wonderful stuff Celia – I’m so glad someone else is trying this recipe out. Look forward to reading your post soon.
Gill the Painter
25th April 2010 at 11:48 amAh, I’ve just made your chilli sauce recipe too just after you Celia, using red fresno peppers.
It’s delicious!
I haven’t been able to seal my jars so it will live in the fridge as long as it lasts.
Mine’s a thick ketchup consistency – which yielded about 500-600mil at a guess.
A very pleasant pepper blend you’ve given us there – minus the adult kick-ass burn. Nice one, and thank you. Gill.
Choclette
26th April 2010 at 7:33 amGill – thank you for letting me know. I’m really pleased folk are making this sauce. You’re photograph is great – love the bottle and I so love the colour. I think consistency depends on the type of chilli. The normal chillies I use makes a ketchup type of sauce where as when I’ve done it with our Fatalii (hot whew) which are thin skinned it came out as a much thinner sauce.
Gill the Painter
26th April 2010 at 4:28 pmMy attempt also had 1 bell and 2 red italian peppers in there, so quite a bit of pulp.
& my apples went quite sticky, I think they aided it too.
If I’d used smaller hotter beasties, I’d have needed to thicken it, Choclette.
My husband is under orders not to use it all up in his salmon fishcakes!
Dee Johnson
22nd February 2013 at 12:10 pmWe love chilli sauce in this family so this is a recipe i will sure be trying. I think i would add a few chillies but not 2Lb lol, think that could be over kill for the kids.
Judith Luscombe
15th August 2013 at 7:25 amAlbertos Locoto chillies, have never heard of these but this recipe sounds fab, I love all my stirfries spiced up with some chilli sauce.
Abhilasha
21st August 2015 at 6:26 pmI have a taste bud for hot n spicy stuff and this looks like THE thing.. Awesome..
Choclette
21st August 2015 at 9:57 pmHaha, it rally is THE thing Abhilasha 🙂
Chris
21st August 2015 at 7:03 pmThat Sauce Looks lovely. I have quite a few chillies at home, but I guess they still won’t be enough. I have to many different versions and then maybe a drop of the sauce could kill you … nah, maybe not, but I reckon it would be very very hot.
Choclette
21st August 2015 at 10:00 pmAh the beauty of this sauce Chris is that you can substitute as many sweet red peppers as you like for hot chillies.
Roy
21st August 2015 at 7:05 pmThat is such a lovely colour..would love to make my own chilli sauce 🙂
Choclette
22nd August 2015 at 8:11 pmAh well you have a recipe now Roy 😉
Razena | Tantalisemytastebuds.com
21st August 2015 at 7:47 pmThis looks like my kind of sauce. Thanks for sharing 🙂
Choclette
22nd August 2015 at 8:12 pmThanks Razena, when I say it’s the best, I really mean it 😉
Chris @ SimpleFood365
21st August 2015 at 9:57 pmI love hot sauces and chili sauces. This sounds so good. I have never tried making it at home but this has inspired me!
Choclette
22nd August 2015 at 8:15 pmOh let me know if you give it a go Chris. The beauty of this one is that you can make it as hot as you like.
Byron Thomas
22nd August 2015 at 12:10 amThat’s fantastic! I love making large batches of preserves. And those bottles are super cute!
Choclette
22nd August 2015 at 6:43 pmThanks Byron, you’re right, those bottles are indeed cute 🙂
Molly Kumar
22nd August 2015 at 9:36 pmOooohhhhh Spicy !!! love the combo of chili and pepper sauces.
Choclette
23rd August 2015 at 10:24 amThanks Molly. We do like our chillies over at Tin and Thyme HQ 😉
Diane
23rd August 2015 at 5:21 amI’m waist deep in red peppers right now! This sauce is looking like a way to use them up. I made a sauce with them yesterday using just the peppers and tomatoes. That was spicy since I left the seeds in. Maybe i’ll give this a goand see what happens. Thanks!
Choclette
23rd August 2015 at 10:31 amWhat a fortunate position to be in Diane. Love the idea of being waist deep in red peppers. Hope you get on well with it 🙂
Janice
17th July 2018 at 8:34 pmWhat a wonderful sauce! Our son and daughter-in-law can’t get enough of chilli sauce!