For the cookery world, chilli sauce is a very generic term, which can be anything including sauce, paste, dressing, chutney, glazes, dips, marinades or relish that contains plentiful amount of chillies or hot pepper, and which imparts good amount of hot (pungent) flavour. With this reason, chilli sauce is often known as hot pepper sauce, or simply hot sauce. If you trace the history of chilli sauce, it can be found that variants of it were in existence in different culinary cultures of the world since ancient times.
When it comes to Asian cuisines, the definition of chilli sauce normally limits itself to chilli sauces and pastes. In East Asian as well as Southeast Asian cuisines, many types of chilli sauces are possible based on the pungency level and addition of other flavours. In such cases, a hot sauce can be mildly hot, strong or medium hot based on the spice scale. There are even more classifications possible with the addition of sugar content, such as sweet chilli sauce. Besides, a variety of other spicy flavours are also added including garlic, mushroom, fish and the likes to make different chilli sauce flavours.
Below, let us evaluate some of the best chilli sauces widely popular:
Mae Ploy Sweet Chilli Sauce
Sweet chilli sauce is more common with Thai cuisine and is often recognised as Thai sweet chilli sauce. Although, Thailand has a number of brands offering sweet chilli sauces, the Mae ploy brand’s sweet chilli paste is the one that is the most popular nowadays even with the European cuisines. Pickled red chilli and sugar are the primary ingredients form part of sweet chilli sauce. Apart from Mae Ploy, Cock brand and Healthy Boy are two Thai based brands with well known chilli sauce products. Also the Asian-inspired Irish food brand Fused has sweet chilli stir fry sauce, and Singaporean brand Yeo’s offers a type of sweet chilli sauce.
Sri Racha Hot Chilli Sauce
One of the most famous hot chilli sauce varieties is known by the town name where it was initially produced. Now well known as the epitome of hot chilli sauce, Sriracha sauces and its variants are named after the Si Racha town in Thailand. Major Thai producers of sriracha chilli sauces are Cock brand, Flying Goose and Suree brand. But undoubtedly, the most popular one is the US producer Huy Fong’s sriracha hot chilli sauce. This brand Sriracha sauce is more popular simply by the name Rooster sauce, as its bottles show a rooster as the brand icon.
Siracha hot sauces make use of a large percentage of sun ripened chilli peppers, and also get its crisp flavour with the addition of vinegar and garlic. Even though the original recipe of sri racha hot chilli sauce calls for chilli pepper, distilled vinegar, garlic, salt and sugar, each famous brand uses different ingredients to produce its own sriracha variants. For example, while Flying Goose simply uses red chilli peppers, Huy Fong brand makes use of Jalapeno peppers to make the unique blend of Sriracha hot sauce.
Tabasco Pepper Sauce
Another non-Asian hot sauce that needs to be listed here is Tabasco pepper sauce and its different flavours. Tabasco is a US brand of hot pepper sauce, which was initially produced in Mexico in the later decades of the nineteenth century, drawing inspiration from Cajun, Caribbean, Mexican and European cuisines. It was named after a Mexican variety of hot chilli pepper, which is the primary ingredient in this sauce. Apart from the original Tabasco pepper sauce, Tabasco green pepper sauce, which is made of green Jalapeno peppers, Tabasco Chipotle Pepper Sauce, and Tabasco pepper sauce with garlic flavour are also popular with global audience. Besides, a unique blend of Tabasco Habanero Pepper sauce which contains hottest habanero peppers and the original Tabasco pepper sauce as the base ingredients is also worthy of recognition.
Mae Pranom Thai Chilli Paste
Thailand’s well known Mae Pranom brand’s authentic Chilli Paste is based on a six decades old original recipe launched initially by the company in 1959. One advantage of Mae pranon Thai chilli paste is its flexibility. Known in Thai language as ‘Nam Prik Pao’, this versatile chilli paste goes smoothly well with a range of native Thai dishes including Tom Yum soup, stir-fry dishes, and Thai style spicy sandwiches. It also goes well with fresh vegetables, Thai crackers and rice cakes as a flavoursome dip. Above all, Thai chilli paste is surprisingly used as bread spread with its spicy sweet flavour.
Lee Kum Kee Chilli Bean Sauce (Doubanjiang)
Doubanjiang, also spelt Toban Djan is an ethnic Chinese chilli bean sauce widely used with the Sichuan cuisine. This spicy chilli paste is a unique preparation of salted chilli peppers, soybean and fermented broad bean paste. Many Sichuan dishes make use of Doubanjiang as a premium condiment in its preparation. The most important one of them is Kung Pao chicken along with a number of stir-fry dishes. Doubanjiang is also called Pixian chilli bean sauce as its origin is being traced to the Pidu district in the province of Szechuan. Lee Kum Kee offers an authentic version of Doubanjiang.
Korean Red Pepper Paste (Gochujang)
Ethnic Korean red pepper paste is known as ‘Gochujang’ in Korean language. Gochujang is a spicy condiment enhanced with sweet and savoury flavours. It is traditionally made of red chilli pepper, fermented soybeans, glutinous rice, malt and salt. Gochujang is often equated to Japanese miso in terms of popularity and cultural appeal, even though the latter is not a chilli sauce. Gochujang makes dishes spicier while also attributing subtle sweet and smoky flavours. Traditional Korean rice dishes such as bibimbap, Korean snack called tteokbokki, ethnic salads, stew, soups and marinated meat dishes make use of gochujang as flavour enhancer and condiment. Korean brand CJ-Haechandle offers one of the most favoured Gochujang varieties.
Harissa Chilli Paste
Harissa is one of the most sought after chilli paste globally available in tube formats. It is a Mediterranean speciality with Arabic culinary influence, traditionally prepared in the South African country, Tunisia. Even though Harissa is available in paste and powder formats, Le Phare Du Cap Bon brand’s Harissa Chilli paste which comes in squeeze tube format is the most demanded variety. Harissa is made of a mix of pepper varieties, including red pepper, baklouti pepper and serrano pepper and other spices and herbs.
