Homemade Holiday Hot Sauce: 2024

This year I decided to try making my own hot sauce and giving it out as a gift. Following a very basic recipe online, I used up the dry chili peppers I have had for a minute. These included Arbol, Guajillo, Chile Negro, and Pasilla-Ancho peppers. Other ingredients included garlic, cumin seeds, white onion, salt, vinegar, and xanthum gum. I let the ingredients soak and ferment in brine for three weeks before processing and bottling everything. The finishing touch was applying the labels that my daughter helped design. The sauce ended up being low-heat and tasting like taco-seasoned Chalula. The feedback I have received from everyone I gifted it to has been overwhelmingly positive, and I think I have found a fun new hobby!