A bright, mild, tangy green hot sauce built from garden jalapeños and poblanos, in the spirit of the green Cholula. A little sugar rounds off the vinegar and keeps it approachable, so it pours easily over eggs, tacos, rice, or just about anything that needs a lift. Jalapeño leads, poblano fills it out, and a little pepperoncini adds a tangy edge.
SpicyVeganGluten-FreeDairy-FreeMake-Ahead
Best for: everyday use on eggs, tacos, grain bowls, and grilled vegetables. Mild enough to use with a heavy hand. Makes about twelve 5 oz bottles — a batch built to hand out and keep on hand.
Garden Green Hot Sauce — Recipe
Active
30 min
Yield
~60 oz12 × 5 oz
Keeps
~3 monthsrefrigerated
Heat
Mild
Equipment
Covered pot
Blender
Bottles or jars for storage
Ingredients
23.5 oz green jalapeños (the lead pepper, about 60% of the blend)
15.5 oz poblano peppers
3.1 oz pepperoncini
1.5 oz garlic (about 10–12 cloves)
2 cups water, for simmering
1 cup white vinegar, plus more to taste
2 tbsp sugar, to taste
2 tsp salt, to taste
Xanthan gum, optional — about ⅛ tsp per cup of finished sauce
Instructions
Taste a raw jalapeño. If your peppers are hot, cut out about half the white membranes to keep the sauce mild. Stem everything, quarter the jalapeños, cut the poblanos into 1–2 inch pieces, roughly slice the pepperoncini, and peel the garlic.
Put the peppers, garlic, and water in a covered pot. Bring to a boil, then turn down to a gentle simmer for 10–15 minutes, until everything is soft. The water won't cover the peppers, and it doesn't need to — the trapped steam finishes them. Stir once or twice, and add a splash more water if it starts to cook dry.
Cool slightly, then blend with the vinegar, sugar, and salt until very smooth, 2–3 minutes. Don't cook the vinegar in from the start — adding it at the blend keeps the flavor bright and gives you control over the tang.
Taste and adjust: vinegar for brightness, a little sugar to round it, or more salt if the flavors seem flat. Thin with a little water if you want it more pourable.
For a silky, clingy body like the bottled version, blend in xanthan at about ⅛ tsp per cup of sauce. Go light — it thickens fast. This step is optional.
Bottle and refrigerate.
Notes from experience
This is cooked, not fermented, on purpose — to hold the fresh green flavor and clean vinegar tang that make it read like green Cholula. There's no onion in it, since the real thing leans on garlic rather than onion.
Storage
Keeps about 3 months refrigerated. To hold it longer, freeze the extra in a container with an inch of headspace and it keeps about a year.
A note on shelf-stable bottling
For shelf-stable bottles down the road, bring the acidity down to around pH 3.6 with more vinegar before bottling, and use a proper canning process. As written, this is a fridge-and-freezer sauce, not a shelf-stable one — don't store the refrigerator version at room temperature.
