Fermenting your own hot sauce is a satisfying way to create a complex, flavourful condiment tailored to your taste. This recipe is simple and requires minimal equipment - a jam jar, a few fresh ingredients, and a little patience. With just chillies, garlic, ginger, and a brine, you’ll start a natural fermentation that transforms these basic ingredients into a spicy, tangy sauce. The fermentation process enhances the depth and complexity of flavours, and after a couple of weeks, you’ll have a homemade hot sauce perfect for adding a kick to any dish.
Ingredients:
Red Cayenne
Scotch Bonnet
Garlic
Ginger
Ground Cumin
Ground Coriander
For the 3% brine: 200g Mineral Water & 6g Sea Salt
Instructions:
Sanitise 250ml jam jar by carefully rinsing with boiling water or washing well.
Rinse chillies, chop and add to jar with garlic, some peeled ginger and any dry spices you like such as cumin and coriander (or don't! Chillies will ferment great just on their own). Be sure to push the ingredients down as much as possible and leave a gap of at least 3 cm at the top to allow for expansion.
Make a brine by taking 200g of spring/mineral water and dissolving 6 grams of sea salt.
Pour the brine into the jar making sure all ingredients are soaked and covered, but still leaving a 2 cm gap at top for expansion. Place lid on tightly.
Leave jar in a very obvious place and invert it a few times a day when you walk past to ensure all ingredients stay covered in brine. This helps prevent mould.
After a few days you should see bubbles start to form inside the jar and the brine will go cloudy. The jar lid will pop up and become hard. You now need to burp this a couple of times a day to carefully release the pressure of the CO2 gas being produced. Be careful not to open the jar completely and let air in. After a week or so the activity will die down and you may only need to burp once a day or every few days.
After a minimum of 2 weeks (a month is even better to allow the flavours to develop), you can process into a chilli sauce. Simply strain through a sieve (keeping the liquid to one side), blend the solids and add either the ferment brine (you can also use any left over brine as a gut health shot or in a dirty martini!) or a vinegar of your choice until to reach your desired consistency.
8. Place back in the jar and keep in the fridge.
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