Six-Seven-Eight Alarm Sauce

In our constant quest for new kitchen adventures we've made a variety of homemade versions of different sauces, like Thousand Island dressing or buffalo wing sauce. Personally I love hot sauce, on just about anything, so it was only a matter of time before trying to put together our own.

All hot sauces seem to have a name, from "Satan's Rage" to "Buttburner Sauce" or "Southwest Jalapeno" and so on, but we really weren't sure what to call ours. Cristal dubbed it "Tybasco" and one of our Facebook group members mentioned that we should call it "Six-Seven-Eight Alarm Sauce."

For this batch we used tomatillos, garlic, onion, red bell pepper, poblano, and jalapenos. You can really experiment here to get different flavors and colors, however. We also got a great result using a mix of banana peppers and serranos for a balance between sweet and heat. For some inspiration on different kinds of chiles to use, check out our pepper comparison guide here.

Everything is chopped up, but it doesn't need to be too small or diced thinly, as it will all end up being blended together later. Unlike with other pepper-based dishes, don't discard the seeds here, as you want the end result to be quite spicy.

All the ingredients are cooked on a hot skillet with a few teaspoons of oil until they begin to soften and become fragrant - you may want to do this somewhere that's well ventilated or with a fan going, as hot pepper fumes aren't easy on the eyes!

After the peppers become soft, throw in about 2 cups of water and allow to boil for a few minutes.

Remove from the heat, and then let the mixture cool down more towards room temperature before pouring into a blender or food processor. Add in either apple cider vinegar or standard white vinegar, depending on what kind of taste you are going for.

Pulse it all together until it starts to become mostly liquid. If you only chop it roughly then what you have here is almost salsa - and if you wanted to add in fresh cilantro and diced tomato it pretty much would be!

After being blended until smooth, pour the sauce through a sieve so the pulpy parts stays up top and the liquid collects below in a container.

Press down on the pulpy solid bits with a wooden spoon to force all the liquid down. Discard the pulp (or get an unsuspecting friend to try eating it for a spicy "surprise") and then repeat the process of pouring through a sieve another time or two.

Here's the refined hot sauce, but it's not quite ready yet!  This needs to sit and allow the flavor to develop first. Put it in container with an airtight lid, pop it in the fridge, and wait a week or two before using.

And here it is, the finished hot sauce (poured back into an old, cleand out hot sauce container for full effect and reusability!) ready to spice up tacos, eggs, soups, or anything else you desire.

Besides using as a topping for anything that would go well with hot sauce, this is also great for using as a base in buffalo dip or calzones.