No hot sauce in your bag? Try these Lexington alternatives during the sriracha shortage
If you carry a torch for hot sauce, you’ve likely been crushed by the news of a sriracha shortage that’s left shelves bare of the sweet and spicy sauce that can make an egg sandwich sing.
The sriracha shortage is due in large part to a failed chili pepper harvest in northern Mexico, where virtually all of the peppers used to make sriracha come from. In April, major sriracha manufacturer Huy Fong Foods announced it would no longer be able to accept new orders for several of its savory sauces.
“Unfortunately, this is out of our control and without this essential ingredient we are unable to produce any of our products (Chili Garlic, Sambal Oelek, and Sriracha Hot Chili Sauce),” the company said in a message to its customers.
Orders submitted on or after April 19 will be delayed to at least after Labor Day, Sept. 6, the company said in its statement.
That means if you’re out, you’ll likely have to go months without it on your omelet, ramen or backyard burger.
Luckily, we’ve rounded up several alternatives local to Lexington you can try, plus a recipe you can play around with at home to see if you can take the heat.
Mad Matt’s Hot Sauce
Run by one Lexington rocker, “Mad Matt” Sigler, Mad Matt’s Hot Sauce got its start when Sigler began growing exotic peppers in his home garden using organic gardening practices.
Since then, Sigler’s worked with many bands, helping artists light a fire among their fans with their own personal hot sauce.
“My friends got really interested in making the really ridiculously hot sauces, and people want that competition-strength hot sauce sometimes,” Sigler told the Lexington Herald-Leader in an interview last year. “I started out only growing the hottest of the hot.”
Sigler draws on some of the planet’s hottest peppers, including the hottest — Dragon’s Breath, at 2.48 million Scoville Heat Units (SHU).
For comparison, the humble bell pepper is 0 SHU, while a jalapeño is 2,500 SHU.
Sigler grows his peppers in his 200-square-foot polytunnel greenhouse, set up in his backyard. As of last year, he was tending more than 72 plants and a dozen varieties, including some milder ones than what first lit his fire for growing peppers back in 2016.
“I love growing everything from seeds,” Sigler previously told the Herald-Leader. “I put them in their planters and cared for them for months on end long before they became a sauce. It never goes into anyone’s hands but mine, which is incredibly satisfying.”
You message Sigler on his Instagram or Facebook at @MadMattsHotSauce to see what sauces he has in stock.
Back Porch Hot Sauce
In 2017, longtime foodie and Winchester entrepreneur Stacy Hicks gave up a steady job working security at Rupp Arena so he could devote more time to building his own hot sauce brand. He was 50 years old at the time.
By then, Hicks’ backyard was thick with hot peppers. It was one of his work friends who first suggested he make hot sauce with them to enjoy them year-round, Hicks previously told the Herald-Leader.
He started ordering bottles online, testing recipes in his kitchen and bringing them to work for his co-workers to try. That in turn led to purchase requests, and he soon sold his first 100 bottles, igniting an opportunity for Hicks.
“A light kind of went off in my head,” Hicks previously said. “I just thought it would be something kind of as a sideline, something to do in my free time.”
The brand’s name, Back Porch Hot Sauce, is rooted in the hot sauces Hicks’ mother would make when he was a child. She even drew the label’s artwork — a line sketch of the family’s modest back porch.
With his sauce, Hicks strives to spark something special, he said.
“I don’t like the mainstream stuff you get in the store. It’s almost all heat and vinegar. There’s hardly any flavor,” he said. “I actually wanted something that tasted like the peppers themselves. You get past the heat, there’s something really enjoyable about a hot pepper to where they have a really good flavor.”
You can order Back Porch’s products online.
Other options
If you can’t find just the thing to fill the sriracha void, you might visit the Pepper Palace location at Fayette Mall in Lexington.
The chain retailer offers a wide variety of hot sauces to appeal to many palates.
If we missed a local-made hot sauce, let us know with an email to ask@herald-leader.com.
Make your own homemade hot sauce with this recipe
You might not be able to find sriracha on grocery store shelves, but do you really need to when you can make your own at home?
Writing for the Los Angeles Times, Noelle Carter offers this recipe for a sriracha-style sauce:
“For a quick Sriracha-type sauce, take a pound of fresh red chilies — red Fresnos and jalapeños generally can be found year-round — and mash them with fresh garlic and salt, a touch of sugar and vinegar. A little love on the stovetop — simmering the mash helps to marry the flavors — then blend and strain the sauce, thinning as desired with water. The sauce literally comes together in minutes (as opposed to fermented hot sauces, which can take days, or longer, to make). And while it tastes good right away, it gets even better after a day or two in the fridge,” according to Carter.
You can check out several of her recipes and accompanying shopping lists here.
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This story was originally published June 22, 2022 at 6:00 AM.