Dill Pickle Hot Sauce
This Dill Pickle Hot Sauce recipe is the perfect balance of tart, spicy, and tangy. Unlike traditional hot sauces, this recipe pairs dill pickles with jalapenos and serrano peppers with a 10-day ferment to give you an addictively delicious condiment. Enjoy it over tacos, eggs, on chicken wings, or mix it into your next Bloody Mary. It's sure to add a unique flavor that you won't find anywhere else!
Ingredients
- 1 lb green hot peppers I used a mix of jalapeno and serrano
- ½ medium yellow onion
- 6 garlic cloves
- ½ teaspoon mustard seed
- 1 teaspoon dried dill
- 2 cups water room temp
- 1 tablespoon sea salt
- 2 cups dill pickle brine divided
- 5-10 large dill pickles
- ¼ cup white vinegar
- ½ teaspoon xanthan gum optional
Instructions
- Prepare for fermenting by washing a fermentation vessel with soap and hot running water. Set aside to dry.
- Coarsely dice 1 pound of peppers, 1/2 of a yellow onion, and slice 6 garlic cloves. Add all ingredients to the fermentation vessel, along with 1 teaspoon dried dill and 1/2 teaspoon mustard seed.
- Combine 2 cups of room-temperature water with 1 tablespoon of sea salt. Stir until completely dissolved. Pour salt brine into the fermentation vessel until the contents are just covered. If you don't have enough brine to cover all ingredients, whip up another batch, 2 cups water to 1 tablespoon salt, and pour until just covered.
- Weigh down the ingredients before securing the lid tightly. Set it aside to ferment. Keep your ferment somewhere where you'll see it daily to observe and open the lid and burp it but keep it away from direct sunlight. If you're using an airlock lid or pickle pipe, burping is unnecessary. After a few days, you should start to notice fermenting activity. There will be small bubbles that rush to the top of the jar when you tap it, the jar may hiss slightly when opened, the color of the peppers will dull, the brine will be cloudy, and the brine may leak over the top of the jar and run down the sides. Later on in the process, the fermentation signs will become less obvious, they jar may hiss less or the bubbles may be fewer, but the fermentation process is still moving along!
- Allow the sauce to ferment for 7-14 days.
- Once satisfied with the level of fermentation, strain the contents of the fermentation vessel and reserve the brine.
- Blend the fermented vegetables along with 5 large dill pickles, 1/2 cup of the reserved brine, 1/4 cup white vinegar, and 1 - 1 1/2 cups of dill pickle juice in a high-powered blender or food processor until smooth. I use my Vitamix and it creates a silky sauce. If using xanthan gum, add 1/2 teaspoon of xanthan gum to the hot sauce and blend until completely combined.
- Add more brine to increase the salty flavor, more vinegar to increase acidity, or more pickles to increase the dill pickle flavor, or cut the heat, until you reach your desired flavor, feel free to add water to thin down the sauce if required. Optionally, you can run the hot sauce through a fine mesh sieve to make it ultra-smooth. It takes a couple of minutes, but it's worth it.
- Transfer the finished spicy dill pickle hot sauce to small jars or bottles for storage in the refrigerator.
Notes
fermenting time:
The great thing about fermenting hot sauce is that it's a personal process, and there's no right or wrong answer when it comes to fermentation time. Most people ferment their sauce for 7-10 days, but you can certainly ferment for longer if you want to develop a deeper, more complex flavor. The key is to experiment and find what works best for your taste buds. If you're new to fermented food, start with a shorter fermentation time and then taste your sauce after a few days to see how it's developing. If you like what you taste, then you can bottle it up and enjoy it. But if you want a deeper flavor, then you can let your sauce ferment for a little longer next time.fermenting temperature:
The ideal range for fermentation is between 68-75°F. If the temperature is too low, the fermenting process will take longer and may not be as effective. On the other hand, if the temperature is too high, the fermentation process will occur too quickly and may produce an unpleasant flavor.kahm yeast:
If you notice a white film forming on the surface of your ferment, it's more than likely kahm yeast - which is generally harmless but tastes terrible. The presence of kahm yeast will probably affect the outcome of your sauce - though some people say you can scrape it off and continue, I'd advise you to scrap it and start again.xanthan gum:
I list xanthan gum as an ingredient in the list. It's completely optional, but adding a small amount of xanthan gum helps to emulsify the sauce as well as increase its viscosity and create an almost creamy texture. Another added bonus to using xanthan gum in your hot sauce is that it thickens without heating, meaning that you're able to thicken while also maintaining all the probiotic goodness of your sauce.Batch:
This recipe makes a large batch! After straining, I yielded just over 1 quart of dill pickle hot sauce. Feel free to halve this recipe if you don't need a quart of hot sauce. HahaStorage:
Keep your delicious homemade hot sauce in the fridge for up to 12 months - if it even lasts that long! The microbes in your hot sauce are still live and viable, even though you've blended them, they'll continue to create carbon dioxide and you will create a spicy dill pickle booby trap. In the interest of avoiding a hot sauce explosion, please, please, keep it in the fridge!Recommended Equipment + Ingredients
Nutrition
Serving: 1tablespoonCalories: 12kcalCarbohydrates: 3gProtein: 0.4gFat: 0.1gSaturated Fat: 0.02gPolyunsaturated Fat: 0.1gMonounsaturated Fat: 0.01gSodium: 526mgPotassium: 61mgFiber: 1gSugar: 1gVitamin A: 153IUVitamin C: 7mgCalcium: 10mgIron: 0.2mg
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!