Homemade Hot Sauce

I made homemade hot sauce this weekend.  I had quite a few hot peppers in my garden and I thought that this would be an excellent way to use them.  Here’a a picture of the peppers I used:

I’ve been thinking about making homemade hot sauce ever since this post.  It was well worth the effort.  The sauce is plenty spicy but it has so much more flavor that any other commercial hot sauce I’ve had.  The garlic and red wine vinegar in the recipe are particularly good as is the flavor of the cilantro.  The flavors literally explode in your mouth.  I can’t wait to top a taco with it sometime this week or even just dip some tortilla chips in it.  Here’s the recipe (courtesy of the Christian Science Monitor in this article):

Homemade Hot Sauce 

5 chili peppers of your choice (see story on ‘heat’ below): jalapeño, habanero, Scotch bonnet, or some other, deseeded (wear rubber gloves) and chopped

3 to 5 cloves garlic, chopped

1 small onion, chopped

1/2 cup cilantro, or more to taste (optional)

1/2 cup good-quality, red wine vinegar

Juice of one lemon

1/4 teaspoon salt

Combine ingredients in a food processor and process until liquefied. Transfer mixture to saucepan and bring to a boil. Simmer for 10 minutes. Let cool and then put sauce into sterilized glass containers.

Yield: about 2 cups.

Sauce will keep for several weeks in refrigerator.

Here’s what it looks like:

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