How to Make Lacto-Fermented Hot Sauce
Making your own lacto-fermented hot sauce is a wonderful way to naturally preserve your hot pepper garden harvest! Once fermented, the hot sauce should last for about 9 to 12 months in your refrigerator. Use this tangy and spicy hot sauce to top scrambled eggs, stir-fries, soups, and all types of Thai food! Each time you use it, you are consuming a wide variety of beneficial bacteria that help to promote gut health.
Lacto-fermentation is a process involving lactobacilli—beneficial organisms that are naturally present on vegetable skins. During this process, these lactobacilli consume sugars in the vegetables in an anaerobic environment. Salt is used to deter the growth of other, non-beneficial organisms and allow the lactobacilli to flourish in order to produce acids that will preserve the vegetables.
I make a few gallons each year after I harvest all of the peppers growing in my garden. The sweet red bell peppers balance out the spiciness in the hot peppers to make the sauce tolerable and enjoyable—not just all spice! Each batch I make is a little bit different, depending on how many bell peppers I include and which variety of hot chili pepper I use most.
You can make this recipe using green bell peppers and hot green chili peppers as well. It is important to use all red or orange peppers in one batch and all green peppers in a separate batch, otherwise you'll get an unappetizing brown hot sauce. Green chili peppers and bell peppers will ripen and turn red on the vine or on your counter after harvest, so just wait if you don't quite have enough red chili peppers yet to make this recipe
To make this recipe you'll need:
- A blender
- A good quality salt (I use Real Salt for fermentation)
- A gallon glass jar with an air-lock lid or several quart jars with quart-sized air-lock lids
- Eight 17-ounce latch lid jars for long-term storage
Lacto-Fermented Hot Sauce
I created this recipe about a decade ago, and I’ve been making it every Autumn since. Every year I make 8 to 12 quarts of lacto-fermented hot sauce from all of the hot peppers I grow in my garden. Once fermented, the hot sauce will last all year in your refrigerator. I usually run out just before it’s time to make another batch! Use any variety of hot chili peppers—cherry bomb, serrano, habanero, shishito, cayenne, poblano, or thai chili peppers. Just be sure that your peppers are ripe (red or orange) before you make this. If they are not ripe yet, you can leave them on your counter in colanders (for air flow) to ripen. After the hot sauce has fermented, ladle it into smaller jars for storage. I recommend using latch lid jars or plastic lids (the acids in the hot sauce will corrode metal lids over time in your fridge).
Use a gallon glass jar with an airlock lid for fermenting the hot sauce. Without an airlock lid, you will have to "burp" the jar a few times a day early in the fermentation process to release excess gasses. With hot sauce, this can cause a mini-volcano of overflow to occur when you open the lid—using an airlock lid is much easier. Once you close the lids, you walk away from it and let the sauce ferment. If you would prefer to make a smaller batch, use a few quart-size air-lock lids instead.
- Cut the bell peppers to remove the stem and seeds. Add it to your blender along with the onions and garlic and 1 cup of water. If it does not all fit in your blender, then split the ingredients up into two batches.
- Blend on medium speed until somewhat smooth—you don't need it to be perfectly smooth like a smoothie.
- Pour this mixture into a clean 4-liter latch lid jar or gallon glass jar with a fermenting lid. If you don't have one, you can use 4 to 5 quart-size jars. If you are using multiple jars, then pour the mixture into a very large clean bowl.
- Next, cut the stems off of each hot pepper. Do not remove the seeds. Add all of the peppers to your blender (do this in batches if you need to) along with 1 cup of water. Blend on low to medium speed until the hot peppers are broken down, but not yet smooth (you want it to be a little chunky).
- Pour this mixture into the sweet bell pepper-onion mixture. Add the 4 tablespoons of salt (should be 1 tablespoon of salt for every quart of sauce) and stir it together well.
- Cover your jar (or jars) with fermenting lids and place into a spot in your kitchen away from direct sunlight.
- Let the mixture ferment for 7 to 21 days. Longer fermentation will produce more acids. You can taste it along the way and bottle it when it is fermented to your liking. The solids and liquid will separate in the beginning, so you may need to swirl the jars around every few days.
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