When you come across a recipe online or in a magazine that includes hot sauce, it’s often a hot sauce that’s available in every supermarket. Understandable, but this sometimes leads to little variation or depth. Tabasco is of course a perfect example of this, as this hot sauce is (rightfully) a classic and available almost everywhere. It indeed helps to make a dish spicier, and the sour and salty character of Tabasco certainly has its applications. However, there are alternatives that (in our opinion) are much more flavorful, offer more variety, and are even cheaper. Secretly, that small 60ml bottle you buy in the supermarket is actually quite expensive when you look at the amount you get for it.
Taste of Tabasco
Tabasco (red pepper) is a spicy sauce that consists of only 3 ingredients: vinegar, fermented chili pepper, and salt. Typical ingredients in a Louisiana-style hot sauce. The absence of other ingredients makes it versatile, but at the same time, it’s not very special in taste and can be experienced as sour. Fortunately, there are more versatile hot sauces that have more refinement in terms of flavor and know how to make your dishes more special.
Alternatives
We’ll stick to the all-round hot sauces that we think are good replacements for Tabasco. Otherwise, we could list pretty much our entire assortment, and that’s a bit too much.
- Raijmakers Heetmakers Tranquilizer: This hot sauce of Habanero & Sweet Potato is very versatile, and you can add the perfect amount of heat and flavor to a dish with it. That pinch of smoked paprika makes this sauce a bit more exciting than Tabasco.
- Cholula Original: A true Mexican classic that’s a bit similar to Louisiana-style hot sauces, but with a few more spices. Makes it more flavorful and less sour.
- Marie Sharp’s Hot Habanero: These hot sauces from Belize have one of the best price/quality ratios you’ll find in the market. The Hot Habanero from Marie Sharp’s is nicely spicy, and the flavor, with the addition of onion, garlic, lime, and carrot, is excellent. The sauce is also a bit hotter than Tabasco.
- Tapatio: This sauce is much more affordable, and in terms of taste, Mexico prefers this over regular Tabasco. That’s partly due to the addition of garlic and cumin. The
- O.G. by Heatsupply: We finish the list with one of our own hot sauces. Just like with Tapatio, the garlic and cumin are prominently present. Fried onions provide even more depth, making it a complex yet versatile hot sauce with a nice tanginess.
Extra tip: if you’re still a big fan of Tabasco, but it could be a bit fruitier and especially much hotter? You can buy the Tabasco Scorpion Pepper Sauce from us!
Choosing all-round is easy, but sometimes it’s good to look more at the main ingredients of your meal. This way, you create matches that strengthen each other and take the whole to a higher level. If you’re looking for inspiration, we have a whole page with hot sauce recipes for you.
And perhaps even better: we’ve written our own book, full of hot sauce history, culture, facts & fables, but also with 40 of our favorite dishes.
