Fermented Hot Sauce with Garlic and Lime
A chili mash left to sour on the counter for a week, then blended smooth — hotter and rounder than anything that comes from a bottle.
- Serves
- 16
- Prep
- 15 min
- Cook
- 7 days (fermenting)
- Written
Method
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Pulse the chilies, garlic, and salt in a food processor until reduced to a coarse, wet mash.
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Pack the mash into a clean quart jar, pressing down until the liquid rises above the solids, and leave an inch of headspace.
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Cover loosely with a lid or cheesecloth and set somewhere warm and out of direct sun.
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Press the mash back under its liquid once a day, loosening the lid to let gas escape, until it smells sharply sour and small bubbles rise when you press it down, 5 to 10 days.
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Transfer the mash and its liquid to a blender, add the vinegar and lime juice, and blend until smooth.
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Strain through a fine-mesh sieve, pressing on the solids to extract as much liquid as possible, and discard the pulp.
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Taste, season with more salt if it needs it, then bottle and refrigerate.
Notes
The salt is doing more than seasoning: it pulls liquid out of the chilies to build the brine that keeps the mash submerged, starving it of the oxygen that mold needs. A thin white film on top is harmless kahm yeast and can be skimmed off, but anything fuzzy or colored means start over. Once bottled, the sauce keeps going a little softer and rounder in the fridge for months.
Any thin-walled fresh chili works here — swap in habaneros for something fruitier and considerably hotter, or mix in a few for heat without losing the fresno’s color. It’s built for eggs and fried rice, but it’s just as good shaken into a pot of braised beans or stirred into mayonnaise for a sandwich.