Apple Hot Sauce

Too many hot sauces have just heat, with no flavour. This hot sauce has a wonderful fruity flavour underneath its heat.

The recipe calls for Banana Peppers, but you can really use an equivalent weight of whatever kind of hot peppers you wish, so you’re in charge of the heat. The colour of your sauce will depend on the mix of peppers you use.

Consistency-wise, this is a pourable hot sauce with the consistency of a popular commercial hot sauce such as Frank’s, which is to say, like a thinnish ketchup.

The recipe makes a *lot*, so you may wish to cut recipe in half.

The recipe was really designed, it seems, for a food mill, which makes quick work of it. If you don’t have one, you could press the mixture through a sieve, but it may be very hard going.

This recipe is from Canadian Living, all of whose recipes are tested for safety.

See other hot sauces.

The recipe

Jar size choices: Either 125 ml (½ cup / 4 oz)  OR ¼ litre (½ US pint / 8 oz) OR ½ litre (1 US pint / 500 ml/ 16 oz)

Processing method: Either water-bath or steam canning

Yield: 7 x ½ litre (US pint) jars

Headspace: 2 cm (½ inch)

Processing time: Either size jar 15 minutes

3.79 from 23 votes

Print

Apple Hot Sauce

This apple hot sauce has a wonderful fruity flavour underneath its heat. This is a lab-tested recipe from Canadian Living.

Course Condiments

Cuisine American

Keyword Apples, Hot Sauce

Prep Time 45 minutes

Cook Time 2 hours

Total Time 2 hours 45 minutes

Yield 7 ½ litre (US pints)

Calories 5 kcal

Ingredients

• 1 ¼ kg hot peppers (3 lbs)
• 2 onions (large white. Just under 300 g / 10 oz after prep)
• 250 g apple (about 2 medium apples / 8 oz. About 2 cups "quartered" they say)
• 500 ml apple cider vinegar (5% or higher. 2 cups / 16 oz)
• 3 tablespoons garlic (minced. 18 cloves)
• 50 g mustard seed (⅓ cup / 2 oz)
• 2 tablespoons salt (OR non-bitter, non-clouding salt sub)
• ¾ teaspoon turmeric
• ¾ whole nutmeg (¾'s of a whole nutmeg)

Metric - US Customary

Instructions

1. Wash, stem and slice peppers (leave seeds in). Put in a large pot.
2. Peel and chop the onion into quarters. Add to pot.
3. Wash the apples. Stem and quarter them, scrape out and discard the seeds, add to pot (no need to peel or fully core.) Add to pot.
4. Add vinegar to pot.
5. Peel garlic, mince, add to pot.
6. Add mustard seed, salt and turmeric to pot.
7. Crush the nutmeg into pieces (by using side of a chef's knife or other means) and add three-quarters of the pieces you get to the pot.
8. Stir pot, bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low, cover and simmer for about an hour, stirring from time to time OR 30 minutes in a pressure cooker on high, natural release.
9. Press through fine disc of food mill, or a sieve.
10. Put in a pot and reheat to piping hot.
11. Ladle hot sauce into heated jars, leaving 2 cm (½ inch) headspace.
12. Debubble, adjust headspace.
13. Wipe jar rims.
14. Put lids on.
15. Process in a water bath or steam canner.
16. Process jars for 15 minutes; increase time as needed for your altitude.

Reference information

How to water bath process.

How to steam can.

When water-bath canning or steam canning, you must adjust the processing time for your altitude.

For salt substitute, Herbamare Sodium-Free was used as it is non-bitter and non-clouding.

Australia and New Zealand vinegar strength special notes.

Recipe notes

• A single large white onion weighs about 150 g / 5 oz.
• A ½ teaspoon of minced garlic = 1 clove, therefore for 3 tablespoons (9 teaspoons), you would need 18 cloves.
• You can just use minced garlic from a jar, provided it is oil free. You don’t want to add oil to a home canning recipe unless it calls for it, as it could cause density issues during heat processing.
• The recipe actually calls for mace blades, providing the nutmeg directions as the substitute. If you do happen to have mace blades on hand, instead of the nutmeg use 1 tablespoon of mace blades.
• To be clear, you do not grind the nutmeg, you add the chunks that you get from crushing it.

Recipe source

• Banana Pepper Hot Sauce. Canadian Living Test Kitchen. The Complete Preserving Book. Montreal, Canada: Transcontinental Books. 2012. Page 276.

Modifications:

• Made nutmeg the default option;
• Added pressure cooker option for part of the initial cooking.

Nutrition information

Regular version

Per 1 tablespoon

• 5 calories, 63 mg sodium

Salt-free

Per 1 tablespoon

• 5 calories, 1 mg sodium