Here we talk about everything DIY sriracha.
Sriracha is the number one food we love to preserve. We use this on EVERYTHING, it’s tasty and it’s super easy to make.
THe Ingredients
All it takes is five simple ingredients and time!
Red Jalapenos
The number one ingredient in DIY sriracha is red Jalapenos. If you are looking to plant a sriracha pepper plant, they are the same plant as a Jalapeño. You can put a few green jalapenos in this recipe, but try hard to wait until they are red, this gives them a really rich, sweet, “peppery” flavor.
While jalapenos are the popular choice, you can make this sauce with any kind of pepper you want. Play around and find a pepper combination that tastes good to you!
Garlic
For the garlic in this recipe play around and find out how much you like in your hot sauce. A lot of sriracha recipes call for 2 cloves of garlic per pound of peppers. I like garlic, so I put more in, like 4 or 6 cloves per pound of peppers. Again, play with this recipe and find our what you like best. If you don’t have a garlic peeler, do yourself a favor and get one. They are a game changer, especially for preserving recipes that call for garlic. They will save you a TON of time and effort.
Salt
Salt has a super important job in fermentation recipes. It helps interfere with the growth of negative bacteria and to preserve the food. Plus it makes it taste good! This recipe calls for 1 tablespoon of salt per pound of peppers.
Brown Sugar
Brown sugar is technically not required for DIY sriracha, but it helps kick starts fermentation and may reduce the risk of getting unwanted molds and microbes. I’ve always made sriracha with brown sugar, but maybe next time I will try it without it. 3 tablespoons per batch are all that it takes.
Vinegar
This helps preserve the sauce after it is fermented and adds more flavor. I use distilled white vinegar, though I know other people use like a white wine or rice vinegar. This recipe calls for 1/2 a cup.
How to make DIY Sriracha
Blend
Wash and stem your jalapenos. Put them in a food processor or blender with the garlic, brown sugar and salt. Blend as fine as you can get them. In my blender I can only get to a really fine dice, but in a food processor I can get to a saucey consistency. Both textures will work, just get it as fine as you can.
Ferment
Place in a jar on the counter with either a loosely placed lid, or a cloth over it. Let it ferment in a warm location out of direct light. Stir one to two times a day. Stirring is CRITICAL. I was negligent stirring with one of my batches and it got moldy just like that.
Allow to ferment at least a week, though you can ferment longer depending on your taste preferences. During this part it will bubble and get a lovely sour fermenty smell.
TIP: Write the day your sauce will be done fermenting on the bottle. I always forget how longs it’s been. This saved my sriracha!
Add Vinegar and strain
Once it is done fermenting, dump the mixture into a blender with the vinegar and whiz up again. Strain through a fine mesh to get any pepper bits out. (Save the pepper fragments you strain out, I’ll tell you what to do with these next. It is YUM!)
Boil (?)
At this point there are two options, you can either put it in your bottles and set it in the fridge. Or you can set it on the cook top boil it down to your desired consistency and then put in bottles in the fridge. The lady who taught me to make sriracha boiled it, I’m not sure why. Either it is to kill any pathogens or it is to boil excess water off. When I made it on my own I didn’t boil it because I thought that it would kill the positive microbes.
Do what you feel comfortable with. The cooked vs the raw sriracha didn’t taste any different.
Bottle and Enjoy!
Put into your desired bottles. I’ve used pint mason jars, or there are these nice squeeze hot sauce bottles, or go full on Cholula with glass bottles. Store in your fridge and enjoy! DIY sriracha should keep just fine for 6 months, If it doesn’t get eaten first!
Bonus! Pepper Powder
Remember those pepper bits you strained out? This is where they come in. Take them and pop them in the dehydrator. Dry until crispy and then it in the blender. We use this in place of pepper flakes or any time we need to add some kick to a soup or stew.
DIY Sriracha REcipe
INgredients
- 1 Pound Red Jalapeno Peppers
- 4 Cloves of Garlic
- 1 TB Salt
- 3 TB Brown Sugar
- 1/2 Cup Distilled White Vinegar
Instructions
- Stem and blend peppers, garlic, salt and sugar until fine.
- Put in a container in a warm dark place. Allow to ferment at least a week. (You can go longer depending on your taste.) Stir one to two times a day, scraping the sides and making sure the mixture is blended.
- Pour fermented mixture in blender with the vinegar. Blend. Strain through a fine mesh. Set aside strained bits and pieces.
- If desired, boil your sriracha for twenty minutes or until it reaches your desired consistency.
- Bottle and enjoy! Keeps in the fridge for up to six months.
- BONUS! Take the strained pepper bits and pop in you food dehydrator. Dry untill crispy and then send through your blender again and voila! Pepper powder.
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