I don’t mean to say that Tabasco and it’s regional variants and clones are valueless, again it has the advantage of being in most places that don’t carry anything else at all, and it’s certainly not inedible.
It’s just that there are so many better options to keep in the house, or that I can make on my own tinkered to my exact preferences, that I see no personal need for it.
I will say, when I first moved from NM to CO, where at the time they considered Pace Picante Medium to be “too hot” it was one of the few options I could get for some fast, easy heat to the horror of the local palate. Thankfully, things are much better now for heat lovers!
Back to the topic though, I started using Sriracha not too long after the above move, because I had a hard time getting anything to my heat-deprived tastes in the stores and wasn’t nearly as good at cooking / willing to experiment on making my own as I am now. But the local Thai place used sriracha (the OG Huy of course), and I -could- get it and Angry Grandma at the local Asian market!
I think Tabasco is great when you want some heat without a lot of taste. I mean, it has some but it is not like Cholula or Sriracha. I like Tabasco on fried eggs. I prefer Cholula or Sriracha on scrambled eggs. Either is fine but those are my preferences.
I find Tabasco is the best go-to when I just want to add some heat…like Chinese takeout which is NEVER spicy no matter how many boxes you tick that you want it spicy. (Actually, there is one Chinese place in Chicago that delivers on spice big time but it is very expensive…also super good…but very expensive…needed to be said twice.)
Tabasco definitely has its place in a good hot sauce line-up.
Compared to fish sauce, sure. But it’s definitely there. I’m not sure if Crystal is fermented or not – I thought it might be as well – but it doesn’t have that funk that Tabasco has, at least to me. Another anology might be Crystal:Tabasco as half-sour:sour (pickle) or possibly vinegar pickle:fermented pickle, but that’s not quite right, as Tabasco also has that vinegary taste and it’s not straight-up lactofermentation. For the record, Huy Fong sriracha also has a bit of that fermented funk in its flavor, as well.
Yep – that’s my all-around favorite general-use hot sauce. I always have a big bottle of extra hot (black label–not really all that hot, but more than the regular) around.
I got some TexasPete brand Cha! and Sriraja Panich. The Cha! is similar to Huy Fong, but it’s far saltier. I found the salt level to be unpleasant when tasting a spoonful, but I’m sure it wouldn’t be as noticeable when used as a condiment.
The Sriraja Panich is sweeter and has a smoother, somewhat thinner texture. I like it a lot, though it’s different enought from Huy Fong that I wouldn’t use it the same way.
We have several hot sauces, and use them for different things.
Tapatio - Tacos, carne asada, etc
Franks - Pizza
Sriracha - Pho, pad thai
Chili crunch (not really hot sauce) - veggie noodle and rice dishes
Marie Sharps - EVERYTHING ELSE. We go through more Maries than all the others combined. We buy one case of the white label and one case of the gold label (spicier) per year on average.
That’s one of the things, IMHO, about Huy Fong that makes it so genius - they made it much the same consistency of ketchup, since that was already one of the most popular condiments in America.
The grocery store had a bunch of rooster sauce when I went last night. I bought two big bottles - one for home and one for work. If the flavor is the same as I remember (one never knows when supply shortages have been an issue) I’ll probably go back today and get a couple more.
Sorry to resurrect this, but I recently discovered sriracha sauce. I love putting it on saltine crackers. My “go-to” was Huy Fong, but the local Walmart stopped carrying it for some reason. So I have tried a couple others that it does carry:
Tabasco Sriracha Sauce. Quite tasty, I must say. Though I prefer Huy Fong. Slightly less spicy than Huy Fong, too.
Melinda Sriracha Hot Chili Sauce. It’s good, but it’s a lot hotter than Huy Fong Sriracha or Tabasco Sriracha. It’s more of a hybrid, IMO, between hot sauce and sriracha sauce.
This thread would be ever so much more enjoyable if it were titled something more like “What are some of your favorite Srirachas?”
Most posters seem to be answering in that spirit, thankfully. I found the Sriracha crisis to be very liberating, in that it forced another round of trying many different alternatives. Some I liked, some I didn’t, but I can’t imagine why anyone else would have exactly the same preferences as I do.
Huy Fong stopped production of sriracha again in May, this time because the quality of the jalapeños wasn’t up to their standards. I don’t know whether they’ve resumed production. That could be why they stopped carrying it at Walmart,
This is not the first time Huy Fong has halted production. It’s happened several times due to shortages of peppers. From what I can tell they’re supposed to resume production this month (September).
I like Huy Fong but I actually prefer their chili garlic sauce to the sriracha. I’m not worried about the shortage as I still have a full bottle of the sriracha and two jars of chili garlic sauce. I occasionally have it on ramen noodles but it’s essential for dim sum, along with soy sauce.
I picked up a jar of the chili garlic sauce when it was back on store shelves, only to find that the flavor had changed. Thankfully, for Christmas last year, a thoughtful soul got me a large 18 oz. jar of the original recipe Sambel Oelek, but I only have about 20% of the jar left. I loathe switching to the newer stuff. It’s my go to condiment for all stir fry and thai food.
Yikes! Thinking about how long I’ve had these Huy Fong sauces, I just checked the expiry dates. The chili garlic sauce fortunately isn’t too bad – both the one in the fridge (which is about 7/8 full) and the unopened one in the pantry expired last month. But the unopened sriracha is, unsurprisingly, older, because I rarely use it. That one expired in December, 2022!
Heh. I like Sriracha, so I buy any one I see. Many are very similar. The Tabasco Sriracha is indistinguishable from the Clover Valley (Dollar General brand) Sriracha.
