Tabasco (various types), Louisiana, Crystal: For American food
Tapatio: For Mexican food
Sriracha: For Asian food
Frank’s Red Hot, Louisiana Supreme Chicken Wing Sauce: For hot wings
Alien Ambush, Salsa de la Muerte and other ‘novelty’ sauces: For Mexican or American food
With only a dozen or so hot sauces in the house, my selection is not large. Someone on the board has 20 or more, IIRC. But the ones I have fill my needs. I like the way different sauces compliment different kinds of food.
I need 3:
On guitar message boards, there is often a man-down on how few guitars you need: “All I need is a Telecaster and a D-18, man, and I’m set.”
Hmm, there may be a thread in there - what’s your passion, and what’s the macho way to say you can practice your passion with the least gear/stuff?
I have probably a couple dozen sauces in my fridge right now, but there’s only a handful that I keep coming back to. These are my essentials:
For Louisiana-style and Southern dishes: Tabasco
General Mexican hot sauce: Valentina. I also enjoy Tapatio and Cholula
Habanero-based hot sauce: really, any of the El Yucateco products. My favorite is the Kutbil-ik extra hot version, but both the regular green and red varieties work for me. I usually have at least two of the three varieties in my fridge at any time. Oh, their Carribbean one is also quite nice.
Asian hot sauce: Sriracha, either the ubiquitous Huy Fong brand or Shark, if I remember to pick it up at the store.
Chicken wings: Frank’s. Accept no substitute. If I want to make habanero chicken wings and still keep the vinegary Buffalo-style bite, I use Bulliard’s habanero hot sauce, which to me tastes like what Frank’s would be were it made of habanero.
And that’s about it for essentials. Just one in each category is fine. I also use a lot of pepper pastes and oils that I couldn’t live without, like sambal oelek (or the Hungarian erős pista, which is similar), Szechuan chili oil (hung yao), jerk paste, and things like that.
IMO, the flavour of Frank’s is the perfect compliment to chicken wings. I should say though, that I don’t make Buffalo wings. Why dilute perfectly good sauce? I bake the wings with a little salt. When they’re done, I toss them in Frank’s and put them back in the oven for a bit. I like them better that way, than when they’re made with the ‘official’ recipe. The SO likes Louisiana Supreme. It’s tasty, and she gets it at the Dollar Store so it’s cheap.
I have a collection of hot sauces with a count around 200 right now. I regularly use Lousiana style Cayenne sauce, Tobasco, Cholula, and Sri Racha, the rest are just for show. When I use something else it’s usually because I have a duplicate in the collection, and it’s not too old.
Sriracha for various things like eggs, hot dogs, etc.
Tapatio for burritos
There’s a lonely bottle of Tabasco Chipotle in there that I never use. Don’t know why I don’t just throw it out.
I also like to make my own. Not just fresh salsa, but put some diff peppers in diff vinegars and let them age. Sometimes I slice up the peppers, sometimes I dry them and crush them first. I’ve had some good success and some spectacular failures.
I’m not sure why Sriracha can only be for Asian stuff. It’s the only hot sauce I keep on hand and I don’t eat any Asian food. It’s essentially just peppers and garlic.
I like it on pizza, bureks or pretty much anything that needs a little kick.
It doesn’t have to be. I just prefer how it tastes in Asian food.
Frank’s. Every food I eat is dipped in said feces.
Actually, Frank’s for wings and taco bell quesadillas (when I have them.)
Sriracha when I am making fajitas (with or without meat.) Garlic, a modicum of heat, and salt in one sauce, what’s not to love?
Actually, I’ve used sriracha for wings when Frank’s is not available such as the wings at a Chinese Buffet. It actually turns out pretty good: much better than no hot sauce.
I just use Sriracha on everything. I picked up a sandwich at the deli. When I got home, I added a little of my homemade dressing (olive oil, vinegar, garlic, pepper, mustard) to the bottom piece of bread and slathered the top piece with Sriracha. It was fantastic. I smuggle it into ball parks so I can put it on hot dogs, burgers, etc. It’s also good on pizza, eggs, etc. Dear Sriracha, I love you!
Sheee-it, boy! I got more hot sauces around here than I can count! (That means at least 6.)
Default sauce for damn near anything: Crystal, Cholula
Dish needs garlic too: Sriracha
Adding more than just a few drops: Frank’s, Louisiana, Louisiana Gem
Bring the heat: all the habanero sauces and their ilk (Iguana, Melinda’s)
Ice cream: Toad Sweat
Montgomery Scott Memorial Sauce: El Yucateco
I also make my own sauces when the peppers are in season. Both green and red. They are in much demand among my friends.
That’s just the pantry. The wall rack has a few dozen more.
At work we have ‘deli sandwiches’. Just your basic meat and cheese type sandwiches. I’ve found that Sriracha goes really well on them. The nice thing about putting something like that on something cold is that you still get all the flavor but it cuts out most of the heat. Spicy things have a knack for getting hotter [spicy] when you heat [temp] them.
Yes, I like spicy stuff, but at lunch when I’m talking to customers and taking phone calls, I don’t want to be coughing up my turkey sandwich because I made it too hot.
Yeah, I’m the same way. Certain sauces just don’t taste right to me in certain cuisines. Like I don’t like habanero flavors in Asian food (for the most part), nor would I put the Lousiana-type hot sauces on them. At the same time, I wouldn’t use sriracha in jambalaya, either, or on tacos. They don’t taste bad, but they don’t taste “right” to me. Like I could see putting sriracha on a carne asada taco, but for me, I prefer something like Valentina, Tapatio, or (better yet), some salsa de chile arbol, salsa verde, or similar.
As for the chicken wings, I’m not a big fan of baked wings, as the skin doesn’t get crispy enough. For me, it’s all about the crispy skin, contrasting with the vinegary-buttery sauce. I’m not a fan of straight Frank’s on wings, either. It’s like a cloud of mustard gas, and I have to balance it with margarine or butter. That’s the reason that when I really want to make “suicide” wings, I either use a habanero hot sauce or add finely diced habaneros to a Frank’s and margarine mixture, as simply upping the Frank’s-to-margarine/butter ratio makes it way too vinegary for me and not hot enough, anyway.
Yeah I love that stuff particularly because of the color. When I am making salsa and know some of the people aren’t that into heat, I make a mild-medium salsa.
But then You can float some green on top of the salsa for the people who like hot, and everybody can moderate the heat they get by how much green they take, or not, and everybody is happy.
My everyday, every meal is Cholula(regular and chipotle).
I always keep Tiger sauce around, for a mild flavorful hot sauce.
and then the green.
That reminds me, on the occasions when I eat salsa, I use regular store-bought salsa for the consistency (I dislike runny salsa), and then liberally add Cholula to it, which adds a little heat and a lot of flavor.
Have you tried oven-frying them? Heat up a butter/oil mixture in a pan in a hot oven (you don’t need a lot); dredge the wings in flour/salt/pepper, put them in the hot fat. Turn once or twice while they roast until crispy. Much less messy than a deep fryer and not all that used fat to deal with.
I’m another who regularly has a wide assortment on hand at any time. I’m not into the “macho” see how hot you can get sauces, but I still have at least 8 currently in my house. If I have to pick one that would be my sauce for every occasion there is no question that it would be Cholula. Perfect blend of heat and flavor without overpowering whatever you are using it in/on.
OK, I just counted. There are 16 bottles currently open and in use around here: Frank’s, Cholula, Tiger, Louisiana Gem, El Pato, Tamarula, Black’s Original, Arrogant Bastard Jalapeno, Pickapeppa, Crystal, Trader Joe’s Chili Pepper, Sriracha, Tabasco Habanero, Tabasco Garlic, Tabasco Bufflao, Tabasco Chipotle. This isn’t counting the various Asian chili pastes and oils, of course.
Don’t even get me started on all the things you can do with Pickapeppa.
I’ll give it a shot. (I don’t like flour on my wings, though. I like 'em naked. But I don’t think it should make that much a difference.) One thing I haven’t tried yet is just trying to do them in a 475-500F oven like I do my roast chicken. That gives me crispy skin, so I would think it would work for wings, but I haven’t tried. Truth is, as often as I make wings, I don’t mind deep frying. The part that is a pain in the ass, though, is doing it for a crowd, as I have to make it a small batch at a time as opposed to one or two large batches at once. Upside is, you get fresh hot-out-of-the-fryer wings every time. Downside is, I have to stand over the pot of oil for nearly an hour.
