Southern Style Pepper Sauce

If you live in the south or grew up in the south then you are familiar with Pepper Sauce. It's not a hot sauce such as Tabasco sauce where the peppers are fermented then made into a sauce. This pepper sauce is simple and delicious and has many uses. Simple as in collecting peppers, putting peppers in a bottle, pour in white vinegar, and put on a cork. Well that sounds like just infused vinegar and basically yes that is what it is, but if you are a southerner then it is just plain ole peppa sauce. 

What the heck do you do with this you ask?   Well in the south we put it on collard greens, mustard greens, turnip greens, (you get the point - add it to greens). Pour a little pepper sauce on cooked greens or add to greens while they cook.  Pour a little sauce  on black eye peas and it takes them to new level of goodness.  Pepper Sauce can be used in any recipe that calls for vinegar as part of the seasoning.  Pepper Sauce can be added to olive oil to make a  salad dressing,  add to ketchup to make a spicy sauce, and I have even added a splash to a Bloody Mary. Really the sky is the limit on uses for this stuff.

When I was a child every house had a bottle of this special brew sitting in the middle of the dining room table.  A bottle of pepper sauce on the table was as essential as a salt and pepper shaker.

 Just as you fill your salt and pepper shakers you can also add more vinegar to the peppers in the bottle.  Over time the peppers will loose their flavor or rather the heat but the bottle of pepper sauce will be good for a year or so before that happens.

Here's how I make my pepper sauce.

1.  Gather peppers from garden (or no garden just buy at grocery store)  I like a mixture of red and green but sometimes green is all I have .  I also like to use cayenne peppers but any hot pepper will do.

2. Wash peppers and trim stem end.  I do not remove the cap but I do cut the stem off at the beginning of the cap.  I have seen pepper sauce made with the stems on but I prefer to cut these off.

3. Sterilize your bottle of choice.  This year I am using a wine bottle but last year I used a very old Gin bottle.  Just put bottle in boiling water to sterilize. Drain bottle and let cool.

4. Pack peppers into the bottle.  Tap the bottle as you pack to settle the peppers in the bottle. I usually pack peppers up to the beginning of the neck of the bottle.

5. With a funnel pour in white vinegar or your vinegar of choice until it covers the peppers.

6. Cork and decorate or just let the beauty of the peppers be the decoration

7. Give your sauce time to infuse the pepper flavor-  usually a few days will do.

This bottle of pepper sauce is over a year old. As you can see the vinegar is almost gone but the peppers still look good.  Since I am making a new batch of pepper sauce I am not filling this and I will discard the peppers when all the vinegar has been used. 

The pepper sauce is beautiful in the bottle and with a ribbon and nice cork it will work beautifully as a gift. 

No matter where you live this pepper sauce is worth a try.   Give your food a little extra spice or make some great sauces with it. 


.  Here is where this blog has been featured