This Superhot Hot Sauce Recipe is made with a variety of superhot chili peppers including carolina reapers, 7-pot peppers and scorpion peppers. It's extremely hot and not for the faint of heart. For true chiliheads only!
Superhot Hot Sauce Recipe
OK, my friends. It's time to reveal one of the hottest hot sauces I have ever made in my own kitchen. Yes, it's homemade and it's crazy hot. Crazy hot in a good sort of way, the way only a serious chilihead can enjoy. This might just be the hottest hot sauce in the world that you can make right at home!
I grow a big variety of chili peppers every year. I love a range of heat and flavors, from flavorful sweet peppers all the way up to superhots with their incredible heat.
I use them in so many ways, and one of my favorites it making homemade hot sauce. I do enjoy milder sauces that focus on flavor over heat, but every now and then, I want some seriously heat in my hot sauce. That's when this hot sauce comes in - a hot sauce made from superhot chili peppers.
Superhot Hot Sauce Ingredients
- Superhot Chili Peppers - Use reapers, scorpions, 7 pots - use your favorite varieties - stems removed – use a mix! Anything over 1 Millions Scovilles, baby!
- Garlic
- Basil Leaves
- Vinegar
- Salt
Hot to Make Superhot Hot Sauce
Roast the peppers. Heat an oven to 400°F. Set the superhot chili peppers and garlic on a baking sheet and bake them about 15-20 minutes, or until the skins slightly char. Keep an eye on these. You don't want them to burn, and watch out for any fumes.
NOTE: Alternatively, do this on your grill outside.
Process the ingredients. Add peppers to a food processor. Squeeze garlic out of their skins and into the food processor they go. Add basil leaves and process.
Vinegar. While processing, add in vinegar until it is nicely pureed. Watch out for the fumes!
Salt and strain, if desired. Add salt and stir. Push the sauce through a strainer or use a food mill to really strain it, if desired. Adjust with more vinegar or water to your desired consistency.
NOTE: I don't always strain. It really depends on how thick you want your hot sauce.
Bottle it up. Pour into bottles and enjoy. Give to your friends! The longer you let it sit, the more the flavors will meld.
Recipe Tips & Notes
- Protect yourself from fumes. Aside from the obvious heat you will achieve with this sauce, you must also beware of fumes in the kitchen. Make this sauce in a well ventilated room. Open the windows if you can. Pepper fumes can be rough, especially with superhots. Consider a mask and/or goggle to protect your eyes.
- Also, wear gloves. I cook with superhots all the time and the oils usually do not bother my skin, but when cooking with a large amount, cutting them open, handling them, you will get some on your skin. It may burn, but if not, it can still burn other parts of your body that you touch.
- Let it sit. Once you've made the hot sauce, jar or bottle it and let it sit a week or two for the flavors to truly meld, though you can eat it right away if you'd like.
Where did you get that hot sauce bottle?
I find them locally sometimes, but I also order through Amazon. Here is a link to some bottles I like (affiliate link, my friends!): Swing Top Glass Bottles, 8.5 Ounce - Set of 4. If you like the smaller bottles that most hot sauce makers use, here's another link: Hot Sauce Bottles, 5 Oz - 24 Pack.
How hot is this superhot sauce?
With superhots, you can expect a wide range of heat, though the majority of them start at over 1 Million SHU. Some will approach or surpass 2 Million SHU, which is somewhat insane, but again, these are ranges so you can typically expect your pepper heat to fall in the middle somewhere.
The heat depends on many factors, such as soil and growing conditions of the particular peppers. Well, my peppers must have been grown under some ideal conditions, because they were HOT. I didn't want them to go to waste, so I turned the majority of them into a hot sauce that I still have today.
This is a Louisiana style hot sauce with a few extras added in for flavor. A Louisiana style hot sauce consists of peppers and vinegar, and they're extremely popular.
With good reason. This superhot version brings in the variety of superhots and adds in roasted garlic and basil. That's it, with a bit of salt. You can expect variable results depending on the chili peppers you choose to work with.
To push for the top end of the scale, use only Reapers or 7-Pot Brain Strains if you can get them. Pure Scorpions would be crazy killer hot. Or vary it up like I did. You can also make this with roasted jalapenos, or pretty much any pepper you prefer.
Choose your peppers with love. That is always a good place to start.
Storage
It should keep a few months easily in the fridge, or even longer. It's all about the acidity. To be technical, target level ph for shelf stable foods is below 4.6 ph, but should probably be lower for home cooks, around 4.0 or so, to account for errors.
I have not measured the ph of this sauce, but I won't have it around very long anyway. If you're concerned, add more vinegar to lower the ph.
The best ph meters that I recommend are from Thermoworks. Get yourself a ph meter from Thermoworks today. I am a happy affiliate.
See my post on "Does Hot Sauce Need to be Refrigerated?"
Enjoy More Hot Sauce Recipes
- Homemade Sriracha (both fermented and non-fermented varieties)
- Cayenne Pepper Sauce
- Ti-Malice – Hatian Creole Hot Sauce
- Ghost Pepper Hot Sauce
- Habanero Hot Sauce
- How to Make Hot Sauce: The Ultimate Guide
- More Hot Sauce Recipes
If you enjoy this recipe, I hope you'll leave a comment with some STARS. Also, please share it on social media. Don't forget to tag us at #ChiliPepperMadness. I'll be sure to share! Thanks! -- Mike H.
Superhot Hot Sauce Recipe (The Hottest Hot Sauce I Ever Made)
Ingredients
- 1 pound superhot chili peppers (reapers, scorpions, 7 pots - use your favorite varieties) stems removed – use a mix! Anything over 1 Millions Scovilles, baby!
- 4 cloves garlic
- 12 large basil leaves
- 1 cup vinegar + more as needed
- 1 teaspoon salt
Instructions
- Heat an oven to 400 degrees. Set the superhot chili peppers and garlic on a baking sheet and bake them about 15-20 minutes, or until the skins slightly char. Keep an eye on these. You don't want them to burn, and watch out for any fumes. Alternatively, do this on your grill outside.
- Add peppers to a food processor. Squeeze garlic out of their skins and into the food processor they go.
- Add basil leaves and process.
- While processing, add in vinegar until it is nicely pureed. Watch out for the fumes!
- Add salt and stir. Push the sauce through a strainer or use a food mill to really strain it, if desired. Adjust with more vinegar or water to your desired consistency.
- Pour into bottles and enjoy. Give to your friends! The longer you let it sit, the more the flavors will meld.
Video
Notes
Nutrition Information
NOTE: This recipe was updated on 11/26/21 to include new information, photos and video. It was originally published on 11/20/15.
John D says
A friend gave me a jar of 5 pickled Reapers which I want to try on this recipe. I can fill out the weight with some dried Habaneros from my garden. My question is, do I need to make any adjustments because the reapers are pickled?
REPLY: John, you can rehydrate the habaneros to fill out the recipe, yes. I'm not sure if you'll get a flavor change starting with pickled reapers, but the recipe will work. I think it will be good. Let me know how it turns out. -- Mike from Chili Pepper Madness.
gage russel orvis says
I have always wanted to commercially sell hot sauce do you have any advice for me?
REPLY: Gage, I plan on writing either a book or a large blog post about this subject, but the main thing is making sure you have a great recipe, a good production facility that follows all FDA safety rules, good bottling and distribution, and a sales plan. Generic, I know, but contact some of the big names out there and see what they've done to get going. -- Mike from Chili Pepper Madness.
Colin Armstrong says
does a sauce prepared this way need to be refrigerated?
REPLY: Colin, it really depends on the final acidity, which should be below 4.0, though I prefer to refrigerate my hot sauces regardless. -- Mike from Chili Pepper Madness.
William says
just made this one with Carolina Reapers and morgua scorpions i love the heat but it's definitely not for the weak or the scared
Johnny says
Just picked 6gal of reapers and 5gal of habanio I plan to put them in my smoker for a few hours. Last year I did ghost peppers I removed all the seeds . Do you remove the seeds or not ? I have basil so I will pick some to try.
REPLY: Johnny, I usually don't remove the seeds, but you can if you'd like. -- Mike from Chili Pepper Madness.
Ben says
Do you think cooking/charring the peppers on the grill would be a good idea? Or perhaps even boiling the peppers.
REPLY: Ben, absolutely. I do this all the time and love charred peppers. You can easily peel them this way if you'd like. You can also boil them and process them, or process them simmer. Many methods. -- Mike from Chili Pepper Madness.
Erica in NYC says
Lovin' it! I used reapers and t-scorpions, no straining. Reapers have a nice taste. I tried it with ghost peppers, but did not like it as much.
Jamie says
I followed the recipe exactly and it turned out fabulous! I used a pound of super hots that I purchased off of craigslist. They were a mix of Naga Viper, 7 Pot Douglah, Carolina Reaper, and Trinidad Scorpians. I also used dark purple basil. The recipe made approximately 20 ounces of finished sauce (I didn't strain it). The flavor is fantastic! I opened all my windows and had a box fan going while I made it, but the worst fumes happened while washing the dishes 🙂 Thank you for this awesome recipe!
Dan says
How much sauce do you end up with from this recipe, and how well does it scale down? Also, do you know off-hand about how many peppers are in a pound? I'm probably only going to be able to spare about a dozen from my harvest.
REPLY: Dan, you can still make this sauce and yes, it does scale. Depending on the size of your pods, you can get about 20-30 pods or more per pound, as they are quite small and light. You'll still get quite a lot of heat with a dozen or so. Try adding other peppers to round it out, or tomatoes. Let me know how it turns out for you. -- Mike from Chili Pepper Madness.
Kaito says
I have only 2 reaper peppers, and was wondering how I could make them into a hotsauce using your recipe, any tips on how to slim the recipe down for it?
REPLY: Kaito, you could try adding in other peppers to fill out the recipe. Thereapers will still add PLENTY of heat. Otherwise, you really won't make much sauce with only 2 reapers. -- Mike from Chili Pepper Madness.
Michael says
What is the concentration of the vinegar you used, is it 6% or 10%? I assume it's a white vinear. I think I'm gonna make a little of this killer at the weekend 🙂
REPLY: Michael, I often use a typical 5% white vinegar, though this also works with better quality vinegars, like white wine vinegar or champagne vinegar. It is to your taste preference. Let me know how it turns out for you. -- Mike from Chili Pepper Madness.
Alex McVay says
I have made a sauce like this, but instead of the oven i use the grill with a little apple wood.
Mike Rumley says
I do mine a little differently and you might want try this as it will add to the flavor profile. Ferment the peppers. To do this, add the stemmed peppers and salt to the food processor with a tablespoon of white sugar. Pulse until the peppers are finely minced. Transfer to a quart mason jar and cover with a coffee filter. Let sit for 7 days. On day 3 start to stir the mash twice a day. On day 8 transfer mash to a blender and add your other ingredients and puree. Then force the mixture though your strainer, pressing with a spatula, to remove skins and seeds. You can bottle at this point but I like to bring the mixture to a hard simmer for a few minutes. Had not thought of using basil before but will try.