Toasty Apple & Habanero Hot Sauce

This is the perfect late autumn hot sauce, when apples are still fresh and ripe and habaneros are still bumping before the first frost.

Apples are an overachiever in this recipe, providing sweetness, natural high acidity/low pH, lots of pectin which helps create a smooth cohesive texture. Garlic gives it that extra umami sriracha-ish taste.

Eat this with fried chicken, rice dishes, and on a killer egg-and-cheese!

WARNING: always use latex gloves when handling hot peppers and hot sauce. These babies can BURN!! NOTE: this recipe makes about 12 2-oz bottles of hot sauce

Ingredients

  • 10 habanero hot peppers, red or orange colored

  • 2 apples, cored and halved

  • 6 cloves garlic, chopped

  • 3⁄4 cup apple cider vinegar

  • 3/4 cup water

  • 1 tablespoon salt

Directions

  1. Turn the oven to broil and on a sheet tray, lay out the first 2 ingredients: apples and hot peppers, and broil for about 10 to 15 minutes or until they’re all slightly blistered and soft, turning halfway through.

  2. Using gloves, pull the stems off the peppers (when soft, they will pull right off) and transfer contents to a blender and add vinegar, garlic, salt and pulse on high for 45 seconds.

  3. If it is too thick for your liking, you can add a bit more water and vinegar, alternating a tablespoon of each at a time.

  4. Taste it! Add more salt if needed.

  5. Fill bottles or jars using a funnel and close with a lid or cap.

  6. Refrigerate when completely cool. Hot sauce should last at least 1 year.

Laena McCarthy