Despite its name, this home-canned hot sauce is a manageable one heat-wise for most people. Even if you’re a super hot sauce fan, though, this is a nice intermediate one to have on hand.

This is a spoonable hot sauce, as opposed to a drizzling one.

The recipe comes from the Ball / Bernardin Complete.

This sauce has quite a sweet edge to it. See also the USDA’s Easy Hot Sauce which is very similar, but without the sweetness.

See other hot sauces.

Contents hide

1 The recipe
2 Red Hot Sauce
3 Reference information
4 Recipe notes
5 Recipe source
6 Nutrition information
- 6.1 With sugar and salt
- 6.2 Sugar and salt free

The recipe

Jar size choices: Either 125 ml (½ cup / 4 oz) OR ¼ litre (250 ml / 1 cup / 8 oz)

Processing method: Either water-bath or steam canning

Yield: 4 x ¼ litre (250 ml / 1 cup) jars

Headspace: 2 cm (½ inch)

Processing time: Either size jar 15 minutes. Adjust time for altitude when over 300 metres / 1000 feet.

Red Hot Sauce

Despite its name, this hot sauce for home canning is a manageable one for most people. Even if you’re a super hot sauce fan, though, this is a nice intermediate one to have on hand. This is a spoonable hot sauce, as opposed to a drizzling one. The recipe comes from the Ball / Bernardin Complete.

Course Condiments

Cuisine American

Keyword Hot Sauce

Prep Time 30

Cook Time 2

Total Time 2 30

Servings 4 250 ml (1 cup / 8 oz) jars

Calories 52kcal

Metric - US Customary

Ingredients

2 tablespoons pickling spice
cheesecloth
200 g hot peppers (chopped, stemmed and seeded hot peppers. 1½ cups / 7 oz. Measured after prep.)
2 litres tomatoes (peeled, cored, chopped. 2 quarts. Measurements after prep. About 2 kg / 5 lbs before prep.)
1 litre white vinegar (5% or higher. 4 cups / 32 oz)
250 g white sugar (1 cup / 8 oz. OR two teaspoons liquid stevia
1 tablespoon pickling salt (OR non-bitter, non-clouding salt sub)

Metric - US Customary

Instructions

Make a spice bag for the pickling spices using the cheesecloth and secure them in it. (Tied up in a cheesecloth or other cloth bundle is fine). Set aside.
Wash, stem, seed and coarsely chop the peppers. Add to a large pot (about 6 litres / quarts in size or larger.)
Prep the tomatoes; add to pot.
Add to the pot half the vinegar -- that's 500 ml / 2 cups / 16 oz.
Bring to a boil, then lower to a steady simmer uncovered until the peppers are soft. About 15 minutes.
Purée the mixture in batches to smooth, in either a blender or a food processor. (Careful, hot temperature wise!)
Return mixture to pot.
Add sugar, salt, spice bag, and remaining vinegar -- that's 500 ml / 2 cups / 16 oz.
Bring to a boil, then reduce to a steady but strong simmer. Stir occasionally to prevent the bottom scorching.
Let simmer for about 45 to 60 minutes, or until mixture mounds a bit on a spoon and becomes consistency almost of ketchup.
Discard spice bag.
Ladle hot sauce into heated jars.
Leave 2 cm (½ inch) headspace.
Debubble, adjust headspace.
Wipe jar rims.
Put lids on.
Process in a water bath or steam canner.
Process jars for 15 minutes; increase time as needed for your altitude.

Nutrition

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.

Australia and New Zealand vinegar strength special notes.

Recipe notes

For the hot peppers, they suggest peppers such as jalapeno, serrano, cayenne or Fresno. If you want to use hotter peppers, (or milder for that matter) go for it. Just don’t increase the measurement of peppers used.
For the fresh tomatoes, you’ll need about 2 kg / 5 lbs before prep. Don’t forget to wash them before peeling, so you’re not driving bacteria into the tomato flesh as you cut them.
Instead of fresh tomatoes, you could use 2 litres canned, diced tomatoes, undrained (8 cups / 64 oz), either store-bought or home-canned. Or, the same quantity of passata. (Note: the National Center frowns on using tinned tomatoes, but there’s just so much vinegar going into this recipe, intellectually we can’t see any objection.)
FYI: After the blending stage, and before the remaining vinegar is added, you’ll have around 9 to 10 cups of purée (about 2 ¼ litres.)
It’s okay to reduce the sugar in this recipe. The safety is coming from the vinegar and the heat processing.
This is a good recipe to use a heat diffuser with during the long simmering stage, to avoid burning the bottom of the pot. Though it may make the simmering time longer, it will free you up to do other things worry-free. If you do, towards the end you might wish to place the pot back directly on the burner to speed it towards its final thickness.
It’s okay if it turns out a bit thinner for you (and thus you get an extra jar). It will just be more of a drizzling sauce.
If you need to, you can make this up to the canning stage, then store overnight in fridge, then re-heat and can it the next day.
BLENDER CAUTION: To avoid dangerous hot surge in the blender, process no more than around 500 ml (2 cups / 16 oz) at a time, and, cover the top of the blender with a heavy towel and hold it down in case any surge does happen.

Recipe source

Kingry, Judi and Lauren Devine. Ball / Bernardin Complete Book of Home Preserving. Toronto: Robert Rose. 2015. Ring version, page 258.

Modifications made:

added sugar and salt free suggestions;
added canned tomatoes suggestion.

Note: this recipe is incredibly similar to the USDA’s Easy Hot Sauce. In fact, it’s as close as darn it is to swearing. That one leaves out the salt and sugar, and starts with canned tomatoes.

Nutrition information

With sugar and salt

Per 2 tablespoons:

52 calories, 233 mg sodium
Weight Watchers PointsPlus®: 1 point
Weight Watchers SmartPoints®: 2 points

Sugar and salt free