The Best Hot Sauce Kit

Buying Guide

Gourmet hot sauce has become a hot commodity in recent years, as consumers have learned about the wide variety of flavors and spices available. You no longer have to be content with store-bought sauces. Instead, you can find shops and online retailers dedicated specifically to hot sauce in all types of flavors and heat levels.

But why buy a pre-made sauce when you can make your own? Hot sauce kits pack in everything you need to make sauces in different flavors and spice levels, allowing you to customize the sauces to suit your own personal taste.

Sauce-making kits aren’t the only way you can indulge your love for hot sauce. You can buy variety packs that come with a range of flavors. Some can even be made into a game, so you and your friends can challenge each other to try the hotter sauces in the range.

Hot sauce kits can make great gifts, and many are packaged that way. All you’ll need to do is slide it into a gift bag or add a bow and you’ll have a ready-made gift for birthdays, Christmas and more.

If your gift is geared toward making your own hot sauce, it will usually include dry seasoning packets and vinegar. Hot sauce is made using salt, vinegar and hot peppers, so the seasoning packet includes the hot pepper flavoring and salt you need.

The heat put out by the peppers in hot sauce is measured in Scoville heat units, with pepperoncini being at the low end of the range, at 100-500 units, while Carolina Reaper is at the top of the range, at 1.4 million to 2.2 million units. For reference, law enforcement pepper spray falls within Carolina Reaper’s heat range, at 2 million to 5 million units.

Unless you’re feeling particularly daring, you’ll likely choose hot sauce in the middle of those two extremes. Lowest to highest, there are jalapeno, cayenne, habanero and ghost peppers. Favorites can also vary by region of the world. Tabasco is popular in Louisiana, while salsa picante is popular in Mexico.

• If you’re planning to bottle up your own homemade hot sauces, make sure your kit includes labels that you can put on each of the jars. Whether you’re keeping your hot sauces for yourself or passing them on as gifts, labels are a necessity.
• For kits designed for making your own sauces, check to ensure there are at least some recipes included inside. This can help you get the hang of making your own before you move on to mixing and matching seasonings to create your own unique flavors.
• The bottles that come with hot sauce kits can vary in size and type. You can find glass bottles and jars, as well as squeeze bottles. Squeeze bottles make it easier to dispense the sauce, but glass bottles are better for chunkier sauces. If it’s a glass bottle, you might prefer a dasher dispenser that drips only a drop or two at a time to control the amount of sauce you’re getting.
• Funnels can come in handy for pouring hot sauce into the bottles, particularly if they have smaller mouths. If your kit doesn’t come with a funnel, you can purchase one separately.
• Hot sauce is all about the food it’s applied to. Foods like chicken wings and pizza might call for one type of sauce, while tacos or sliders might call for another. If you’re purchasing hot sauce for someone else, pay close attention to how that person typically eats hot sauce to make sure your set covers it.
• Those who like hot pepper challenges will likely prefer a range of hot sauces, going from mild to the absolute hottest on the Scoville scale. This will allow you to gradually scale up to find out just how far you can go.