How To Tone Down The Heat Of Your Homemade Hot Sauce

For heat-seekers, finding the ideal hot sauce may feel like a lifelong pursuit. And while extensive work may be done to determine the best hot sauces worth the pantry space, making the spicy condiment at home offers the unique chance to dial in a desired flavor profile, along with a perfect heat level.

That said, whipping up from-scratch hot sauce not an exact science, even if you're working from a recipe (peppers can be hotter at different freshness levels, for example). Fortunately, if you have a hot sauce iteration that sets your mouth ablaze in a bad way, you don't have to send it down the drain. Chowhound had a chance to talk to hot sauce expert Noah Chaimberg, the founder and CEO of HEATONIST, to understand how to balance out a sauce that burns a little too much for your liking. 

His tips include a few easy fixes that feature go-to ingredients for taming a fiery hot sauce, so they should be easy enough to put into practice in a pinch. For starters, there are some elements you can add to the sauce to save it. "Rich ingredients like oil, powdered dairy, or sun-dried tomato can help even out the spice if you think you overdid it," Chaimberg says.

Since acidity is a flavor enhancer that can emphasize whatever strong tastes are in your sauce, it has the potential to boost that burning spice. With that in mind, Noah Chaimberg explains that it's best to reach for ingredients that have the potential to counteract the citrus or vinegar in your recipe. "Sweeter ingredients like fruits can also act as a distraction from the heat," he suggests. On the other hand, perhaps counterintuitively, he says that additional spices can also help — just not the kind that are pepper-based (Chaimberg recommends ginger, garlic, or mustard).

Especially if you're just starting to experiment with homemade hot sauce, it can be easy to go overboard with spiciness. And while your favorite spicy food is perfect for pairing with beer, when the sauce is too hot, it can wreak havoc on your palate. It turns out that you can increase your spice tolerance, but that takes some time and intention. In the meantime, by following these expert tips to retool your condiment, you can rescue any over-the-top hot sauce from a date with the drain and enjoy a kick that won't kill your taste buds — all with your own specific cravings in mind.