Growing peppers is such a treat. There are so many ways that you can incorporate them into your garden and your kitchen. Whether you use them fresh, add them to salsa or dry them as spices. Making hot sauce is a fun and creative way to use peppers. The world is your oyster with hot sauce! Crafting your own recipe can be a great way to learn about the flavor profiles and heat levels of peppers. It almost feels like making your own magical potion!

There are lots of different options from fermented hot sauce, to chili pastes, and pepper jams. Each bringing a unique texture and taste to your kitchen table. You know we love preserving food here at Siskiyou Seeds. It is not only a great activity during the summer, but it is also an excellent way to enjoy your garden through the whole year. Pepper products make really nice gifts as well. No one is ever disappointed by the gift of home made hot sauce. 

Did you know hot sauce is not just made from peppers? You can also add tomatoes or carrots to mitigate some of the heat and improve texture. Hot sauces also include things like celery, garlic and onions as well as other spices. So do not forget to grow some of these vegetables as well if you are hoping to make your own unique hot sauce from your garden.

Here are some of our favorite peppers to use for hot sauce and pepper preserves.

Jimmy Nardello is sweet, with thin walls and highly prolific. It is a sweet italian frying pepper. This pepper is part of our Heirloom Garden Collection. It is a well known and much favored heirloom for a reason. This variety was brought "back" to America in the 19th century from Italy. and is named after the son of the family that saved the seeds, Jimmy Nardello. Heirlooms are cool because they are seeds passed through families, grown and saved by generations usually because they are delicious. My favorite use for this delightful sweet pepper is for pepper jam or a yummy thick pepper spread. It can be eaten fresh or used in cooking as well. Nardello peppers make a good sweet pepper addition if you want to mellow out sauce made from a hotter pepper like a habanero. Plants are early maturing and grow to about 30 inches. The fruit is long and slender and will be about 8-10 inches long.

Fresno chili is the quintessential pepper used to make most sriracha style sauces out on the retail market. How much fun would it be to make your own? This pepper was developed in the central valley of California and is named after the city of Fresno. Fresno chilis are spicier than jalapenos with a Scoville heat unit of 10,000. there flavor is sweet, smokey with a gentle heat. Plants will grow to about 24 inches tall. The peppers will be wedge shaped and 3 inches long. You can also use them to roast for salsa and enchilada sauce. You can preserve salsa and enchilada sauce in hot water baths. I like them for pickling, making cowboy candy and generally just as a nice swap out for jalapenos. They mature from green to red and become hotter as the color changes.

Magnum Habanero is one of my absolute favorite flavor peppers for a classic hot sauce. It is bright and sweet but also really spicy! Habanero are a different species, Capsicum chinense but it is thought to have originated in the Amazon basin. it is named after Havana, Cuba. It is a lot hotter then the other two peppers above with a Scoville heat unit range between 100,000-300,000. Quite, spicy for these cute unassuming orange peppers. This variety  does mature slightly earlier than other habanero varieties. However, make sure you plant it early as the hotter the pepper generally the longer it takes to mature. It also sometimes can take hotter pepper seeds longer to germinate. If you are lucky enough to live somewhere continually hot enough your habaneros will be perennial plants. Magnum Habanero will produce tons of adorable bonnet shaped peppers that are 2-3 inches long once it gets growing. So there will be a lot of fruit for your hot sauce!

For information on how to grow peppers check out our blog post "Pass the Pepper or Chili Please".

Happy Planting