Easy Hot Sauces to Spice Up Your Favorite Holiday Classic Foods
By Elaine Selna
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During the holiday season, there are some traditional dishes that every family seems to make. From mashed potatoes to turkeys to pies, it doesn’t seem like there is much wiggle room to add more. Hot sauces are a great way to add new flavors to the meals you grew up knowing a loving. Different hot sauces work for different cuisines and dishes, which is why we have compiled the best hot sauces for different holiday occasions.
Everyday hot sauce
When it comes to an everyday hot sauce, you want something that has a lot of flavor, but not too much heat that you are unable to eat your food on a daily basis. Aiming for a jalapeño or habanero hot sauce is a safer everyday spice level. But you also want it to work with a lot of different cuisines.
Zana Organic Habanero Hot Sauce from Fuego Spice is an easy everyday hot sauce that you can pretty much put on everything. This bottle ($9) packs a punch but won’t leave your mouth on fire for hours on end. Fuego Spice claims you can put it on sandwiches, tacos, pasta, and more.
BUY IT: Fuego Spice’s Zana Organic Habanero Hot Sauce
Best hot sauce for your mashed potatoes
When making mashed potatoes, they can taste a lot like nothing. They work really well at Thanksgiving when other dishes pack lots of flavor and you just want to add more food so potatoes are that side dish. However, we have to level them up with some hot sauce that brings more flavor.
Tia Lupita’s Hot Sauce only uses seven ingredients so you know you are getting a well-made sauce that doesn’t rely on artificial ingredients. This bottle of power ($7) utilizes red chili flakes, spices, and, the key to why it will be great for potatoes, vinegar. The vinegar from this hot sauce is going to cut through the pillowy, buttery potatoes, and give them new life at your dinner table.
BUY IT NOW: Tia Lupita’s Hot Sauce
Stop bland turkeys
Even though turkeys are the main dishes at most Thanksgivings and Christmas parties, they can be some of the blandest dishes on the table. When a turkey has no flavor and no moisture, it can be a real buzz kill. This year, why not celebrate the ceremonial bird by treating it like its cousin, the chicken.
DiChickO’s Famous Peri-Peri Wing Sauce was obviously not made for turkeys, but it will still bring a ton of flavor to the bland dish. This sauce ($7) was made for protein sources that are grilled, baked, or sautéed in a skillet. The African Bird’s Eye Pepper is very popular in African and Portuguese dishes and can now be a highlight of your dishes too.
BUY IT NOW: DiChickO’s Famous Peri-Peri Wing Sauce
Eggs, eggs more eggs
Whether you eat them scrambled, hard-boiled, poached, or deviled, eggs are a pretty versatile food. They can absorb all different kinds of flavors depending on how you prepare them. However, if they are left on their own, they lack some taste. Hot sauce is a great way to change up how you make eggs and give them a new life.
Adoboloco’s Hamajang Smoked Hot Sauce is the key to this new beginning. Now, this sauce does contain the famous Ghost Pepper which means this sauce is serious and not for the faint of heart. Turn back now if you cannot handle the heat. This sauce ($9) builds its head over 20 to 30 minutes so try to take it slow even if you are a professional hot sauce connoisseur. The eggs will just soak the sauce up right away and make you forget about how bland they were before.
BUY IT NOW: Adoboloco’s Hamajang Smoked Hot Sauce
Blast lid off your cookouts
Grilling out hot dogs, burgers, and the occasional turkey can be such a fun traditional past time, but not if the flavor isn’t there. Sure, the grilling process adds some smokiness, but the best companion to grill marks is a hot sauce that can enhance the experience.
Gochujang is one of the most popular condiments out there. Hailing from South Korea, this red chili paste is fermented and used in all kinds of dishes from sweet to savory and all the others in between. Korean Delights’ We Rub You Hot Korean Gochujang Sauce is great for these kinds of cookouts. Next time you have a hot dog, skip the boring ketchup and opt for this sauce ($8)go and see how it changes the game.
BUY IT NOW: Korean Delights’ We Rub You Hot Korean Gochujang Sauce
Dessert hot sauce
Dessert is probably the last way place you would even think about using hot sauce, but it is actually a great place to create some interesting food pairings. For example, hot sauce and fruit work really well together. Imagine eating watermelon with a habanero sauce on it. The sweetness in the fruit complements the tang in the sauce.
Humble House’s Habanero & Aji Amarillo Hot Sauce is the one we think would work best in a pairing like the one mentioned above. The hot sauce ($10) itself already contains fruits like mango and papaya. Because it has been combined with Peruvian aji amarillo chiles and fermented over summer means the flavors are more subtle than other sauces out there.
BUY IT NOW: Humble House’s Habanero & Aji Amarillo Hot Sauce
Mole for Mexican food
If you are going to embark on making Mexican food, then you’ll need the right tools and spices. One of the most prevalent sauces out there is mole. Containing over 30 different ingredients, it isn’t feasible for you to make it at home unless you have a recipe from someone’s grandmother. It has a rich flavor that can still be bought and used on most dishes.
XILLI’s Mole Poblano sauce is a great example of how rich the flavors are in mole. This traditional method of making mole is combined with modern production so you can get this sauce ($20) in a flash. It isn’t as spicy as a traditional hot sauce, but the flavors will still blow you away.
BUY IT NOW: XILLI’s Mole Poblano
Set for the Hot Sauce Lover in your Life
When deciding which dishes to put out on the traditional holiday table for everyone to eat, you are probably thinking about gifts you have to buy the people sat at said table. For those in your life that love hot sauce or want to learn more about it, a hot sauce set is a perfect treat.
iGourmet’s Hot Sauce Lover’s Collection is the perfect starting kit or addition to an already established collection of sauces. Many of the sauces mentioned above are in this collection ($60) such as DiChickO’s Famous Peri-Peri Sauce, Humble House’s Habanero & Aji Amarillo Hot Sauce, and Adoboloco’s Hot Sauce. They even have added a Sriracha and Vidalia onion and jalapeño hot sauce so you can get the best of all the flavors.
BUY IT NOW: iGourmet’s Hot Sauce Lover’s Collection