Datil Pepper Sauce
A flavorful hot sauce recipe made with fiery datil peppers, tomato paste, vinegar and honey, with a few extra spices tossed in for flavor. This might be your new favorite hot sauce!
Datil sauce in the house, my friends! I grew datil peppers this year in our garden and luckily for me, the plant exploded with datil peppers.
If you’ve never cooked with datil peppers before, and if you enjoy the heat, you owe it to yourself to either grow or rush out and get some for yourself.
Datil peppers pack the intense heat of the habanero pepper or Scotch Bonnet, but its flavor is sweeter and fruitier. Heat wise, they’re right up there, measuring in at 100K-300K on the Scoville Scale.
That’s some nice heat! Learn more about the Datil Pepper here.
I got so many of them this year!
Aren’t they gorgeous and vibrant?
I dehydrated some of mine for chili powders and chili flakes, as well as used many of them for hot pepper jelly, but I also grew them for a very specific purpose – making hot sauce!
YES!
Datil pepper sauce is nice and fiery, and it’s so good dashed over many, many different dishes. Use it to spice up a pot of chili, spoon over tacos or sandwiches, swirl into your next pot of stew or into your slow cooker with a nice hunk of beef or pork.
So many wonderful possibilities with this, right?
I made this hot sauce with datils, of course, and complimented them with tomato, vinegar, sweet honey, and a few additional spices to round out the flavor.
Let’s talk about how we make this hot sauce, shall we?
How to Make Datil Pepper Hot Sauce – The Recipe Method
First, gather up your ingredients, which includes datil peppers, tomato paste, apple cider vinegar, lemon juice, honey, garlic powder, paprika, and salt and pepper. You’ll also need some water to thin out the sauce a bit to your preference, though you can also use extra vinegar if you enjoy the flavor.
Next, add all of the ingredients accept for the water to a pot and bring to a quick boil.
Reduce the heat and simmer for about 20 minutes, until the peppers soften up nicely.
Cool it slightly, then process the whole mix in a food process or blender until very smooth.
Add in water a bit at a time until it reaches your preferred consistency.
BOOM! That’s it!
Such a gorgeous and SPICY hot sauce. I can’t get enough of this stuff.
This recipe makes about 1 cup of unstrained hot sauce. It’s a pretty thick sauce overall, so thin it out as desired with either water or vinegar. You can also strain out some of the solids to thin it as well.
I hope you enjoy it, my friends! Let me know how it turns out for you!
Learn More About Hot Sauce Making
That’s it, my friends! I hope you enjoy the hot sauce! Go cayenne!
Safety Advice
When working with very hot chili peppers peppers, it is important to wear gloves when handling the peppers both in raw and dried forms. The oils can get on your skin and cause burning sensations.
Need help? How to Stop the Chili Pepper Burn On Your Skin.
Frequently Asked Hot Sauce Questions
Here are answers to some of the most common questions I get on other sauces:
How long will this sauce keep?
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. If you’re concerned, add more vinegar to lower the ph. Sauces made with fermented chili peppers will last even longer.
The best ph meters that I recommend are from Thermoworks. Get yourself a ph meter from Thermoworks today. I am a happy affiliate.
Where’d you get that 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
Can I process this hot sauce for longer storage?
Absolutely. Just be sure to use proper canning/jarring safety procedures.
What should I do with hot sauce?
Aside from drizzling it over anything you please, here’s a post I did about How to Cook with Hot Sauce. As if you need even MORE reasons to eat hot sauce. I hope you find it helpful!
Try Some of My Other Popular Hot Sauce Recipes
- Homemade Sriracha (both fermented and non-fermented varieties)
- Roasted Red Jalapeno Hot Sauce
- Cayenne Pepper Sauce
- Honey Roasted Hot Pepper Hot Sauce
- Ti-Malice – Hatian Creole Hot Sauce
- Ghost Pepper Hot Sauce
- Superhot Hot Sauce (The Hottest Damn Hot Sauce I Ever Made)
- Devil’s Tongue Hot Sauce
- Homemade Tabasco Sauce
- More Hot Sauce Recipes
If you try this recipe, please let us know! Leave a comment, rate it and tag a photo #ChiliPepperMadness on Instagram so we can take a look. I always love to see all of your spicy inspirations. Thanks! — Mike H.
- 3.5 ounces datil peppers chopped (98 g) (About 40 datil peppers, depending on the size)
- 3 ounces tomato paste
- 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice
- 1 tablespoon honey
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1 teaspoon paprika
- Salt to taste
- ¼ cup water or more to thin the sauce
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Add all of the ingredients accept for the water to a pot and bring to a quick boil. If you need a bit more moisture, add a couple tablespoons of water.
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Reduce the heat and simmer for about 20 minutes, until the peppers soften up nicely.
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Cool it slightly, then process it in a food process or blender until very smooth.
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Add in water a bit at a time until it reaches your preferred consistency.
Makes about 1 cup of unstrained hot sauce. It’s a pretty thick sauce overall, so thin as desired. You can also use more vinegar to thin it if you prefer.
Heat Factor: Hot. Not as hot as a ghost pepper hot sauce, but you'll definitely get some good heat from the datil peppers.
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Following this recipe it seems to me there’s just not enough liquid even bring it to a boil. I had to add extra vinegar and a little extra water to the pot otherwise it was too thick. Hopefully it’s going to come out good
Charles, it’s really about the simmering. I had no problem with the amount of liquid, but as you mentioned, you can easily add in a bit more water or vinegar to get a good simmer. Much can depend on the pot or pan you are using. Let me know how it turns out for you.
Came out great I added an extra half a cup of apple cider vinegar. Just tried it on my tacos and has a great taste …i like it I will make it again
Great, Charles! Glad you enjoyed it!
Just found you website looking for a way to use all the datils that I have growing. A quick question about putting them in those great little sauce bottles. Is there a recipe for canning in those things so I don’t have to keep them in the fridge?
Thanks,
Al, if you want to process woozy bottles at home, I believe you’d need to use ones that have metal caps. I’m not sure if there is a good way to process them at home. You can always process them in jars.
4th time making this yummy sauce. It never lasts long. My garden runnith over with Datil peppers this summer. I’m picking 20+ a day. I double the recipe – use about 100 peppers per batch and share with family. Only hot sauce we use these days. I nix the honey and use Stevia. Works great. Thanks!
Outstanding, Deborah! You’ve got a HECK of a lot of datil peppers! Sweet! I wish I had your problem, haha! Nice tip on the stevia. Glad you like it!
1/4 water in what measurements??
1/4 cup, Dmitriy. You can start with a few tablespoons if you’d like, then keep adding from there to thin it to your preferred consistency. Thanks! Let me know how it turns out for you.
I am growing Datil peppers in my hydroponic AeroGarden. I have three plants that are about four weeks old. Six inches tall and growing like a weed. 17 hours Day artificial grow light, water and nutrients every two weeks. I have purchased another AeroGarden and started four more Datils. Wish me luck. Can’t wait to make hot sauce with my home grown datils. OBTW, got the original seeds from a pepper I dried (The agricultural farm at St. John’s in St. Augustine gave me a few). New seeds ordered from Sandia Seed in Albuquerque. ????????????????????
Sounds GREAT, Thomas. Proper seeds! I’d love to hear how it all turns out! Report back in, please!
Tried this recipe twice, but without datil (it’s a real problem to get some exotic hot pepper in Moscow), just common chill pepper from grocery. First time I violated the recipe and added too much tomato paste, so I warn everyone: avoid it or you will get ketchup )
Second time I got something pretty like the picture; the taste is interesting, sweet, somewhat like barbecue sauce. Thank you for the recipe!
Excellent, Ivan. Thank you! I hope you can find some datil peppers in the future, but yes, this recipe can work with just about any pepper. Take care.
I have used thise recipe a heap of times with different types of chilli, and everytime the sauce comes out amazing! I absolutely love the flavours.
I have substituted the Datil with;
Bhut Jolokia – made 2 cups
Yellow Habananer – made 1 cup
Chocolate Devils Tongue – made 2 cups
X-Strain Variant + Capsicum – made 2 cups
Excellent, Adam! I love it.
O…..M….G! I just finished making this and immersion blending it in the pot…..it’s not even cool yet, and I cannot stop eating it! This HAS to be the BEST hot sauce I have EVER tasted! I have never made any homemade, but I had an over abundance of Datil peppers this year and started looking for recipes. Didn’t have to go far to find this one….and I am putting this recipe in my lock box so I will NEVER lose it! Can’t wait for my “heat resistent” sons to have some! THANK YOU!
Awesome, Ann! Super happy you like it! I love this sauce, too. So good. Nice and spicy.