If you want something spicy and tasty, this sweet hot pepper sauce is the answer. It’s not hot like, “you can’t eat this” type hot, it’s just enough to give your meal that extra flavor in each bite. This recipe is perfect for people who have an affinity for peppers but have trouble finding their preferred level of spice.
Homemade Caribbean-Style Sweet Chili Sauce – Recipe
Make your own hot sauce at home with this sweet Caribbean style chili sauce recipe.
- Course: Main Course
- Cuisine: American
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 20 minutes
- Total Time: 30 minutes
- Calories: 17kcal
- Servings: 50
Ingredients
- 1 pound red chili peppers chopped (see comments above – try ghost peppers, Scotch Bonnets, habaneros, or even milder peppers – or a combination of them all!)
- 1 8- ounce can sliced peaches in heavy syrup pears works well, too
- 1/4 cup yellow mustard
- 1/4 cup brown sugar
- 1/4 cup molasses
- 1/2 cup distilled white vinegar
- 1 teaspoon ground cumin
- 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon black pepper
Instructions
- Set oven to broil.
- Slice the peppers in half lengthwise and set them onto a baking sheet. Broil them about 15-20 minutes, or until the skins char and blister. Don’t get too close to the heat source. Remove, cool, and peel.
- Add peaches to a food processor and process until fairly smooth.
- Add chili peppers, molasses, brown sugar, mustard, vinegar, salt, pepper, cumin, and ginger. Process until smooth.
- At this point, you can strain through a food mill if you want a silkier style sauce. Or, simply pour directly into a bowl or jar and cover.
- Refrigerate overnight to allow the flavors to mingle.
Frequently Asked Hot Sauce Questions
Here are answers to some of the most common questions I get on other sauces:
How Long Will This Sauce Keep?
It should keep a few months easily in the fridge, or even longer. It’s all about the acidity. To be technical, target level ph for shelf stable foods is below 4.6 ph, but should probably be lower for home cooks, around 4.0 or so, to account for errors. If you’re concerned, add more vinegar to lower the ph. Sauces made with fermented chili peppers will last even longer.
Can I Process This Hot Sauce For Longer Storage?
Absolutely. Just be sure to use proper canning/jarring safety procedures.
Sweet chilli sauce
- Preparation and cooking time
- Prep:10 mins
- Cook:25 mins
- plus cooling and 1-2 hrs infusing
- Easy
- Makes 200ml/10 servings
Make your own sweet chilli sauce to cook with. This Thai condiment often contains fish sauce but we’ve kept our version veggie
- Gluten-free
- Vegan
- Vegetarian
| Highlight | Nutrient | Unit |
|---|---|---|
| kcal | 87 | |
| low in | fat | 0g |
| saturates | 0g | |
| carbs | 21g | |
| sugars | 21g | |
| fibre | 0g | |
| protein | 1g | |
| salt | 0.01g |
Ingredients
- 20 red chillies , stems removed, deseeded for a milder sauce
- 1 finger sized piece of ginger , peeled and roughly chopped
- 5 garlic cloves , roughly chopped
- 100ml white wine or cider vinegar
- 200g white caster sugar
Method
- STEP 1 Tip all the ingredients except the sugar into a mini chopper or blender and blend to a chunky sauce. Scrape the contents into a shallow saucepan with the sugar and 100ml water and bring to a simmer.
- STEP 2 Simmer for 15 mins, stirring occasionally until it becomes syrupy. Keeping a close eye on it, continue to simmer and stir for 5 mins more until it easily coats the back of the spoon and you see the bottom of the pan when you stir. Leave to cool and infuse for 1-2 hours. Will keep in a small sterilised jar for up to a month.
EASY SWEET CHILI SAUCE RECIPE (WITH FRESH CHILIES)
Quick and easy Sweet Chili Sauce is a perfect blend of sweet, spicy and tangy flavors. This recipe is made with fresh chilies making it easy to customize for your taste. Great on everything from dippable spring rolls, grilled meats to chicken nuggets!
Homemade Sweet chili sauce is perfectly balanced so it’s not more sweet than spicy, or more spicy than sweet.
It has a nice medium heat.
This delicious flavor combination makes it perfect with so many foods as a dip, sauce or cooking ingredient.
This Thai Sweet Chili Sauce recipe was given to me from dear friends in New Zealand.
They created their own version to use fresh cayenne peppers from their garden.
They love it in stir fry recipes, on tacos, in pasta or as a condiment on vegetables, fish or meat.
It’s very easy to make and to customize based on fresh chilies available to you.
The original recipe makes about 4 cups of chili sauce so is perfect for frequent use or larger families.
The recipe has been scaled to make about 1 1/3 cups here and can be doubled if desired.
RECIPE INGREDIENTS
Traditional Thai Sweet Chili Sauce often includes soy sauce, fish sauce or sambal oelek, a Southeast Asian chili paste.
This sweet chili sauce recipe does not use any of those ingredients, relying on fresh chile peppers for the heat and color.
The addition of ginger root and smoked paprika give it a special depth of flavor you’ll love!
This sauce recipe is also naturally gluten-free.
- Granulated Sugar
- White Distilled Vinegar – this type of vinegar has a distinct tang and helps the sauce hold it’s color too.
- Water
- fresh Chilies – I used Serrano chilies for this recipe. Fresh cayenne chile peppers or red jalapenos will give the traditional color. More info below.
- Garlic Cloves
- Ginger Root
- Lime Zest + fresh Lime Juice – put the lime in the microwave for 10 seconds for more juice! Zest the lime before juicing it.
- Smoked Paprika
- Cornstarch or Arrowroot powder – this will slightly thicken the chili sauce so the diced ingredients will not sink to the bottom.
WHAT CHILE PEPPERS TO USE?
The original recipe used freshly grown Cayenne Peppers.
Unfortunately unless you grow your own in the United States those are very hard to find at the grocery store. They are also very hot (spicy).
I’ve substituted Serrano chile peppers which are slightly less spicy but comparable. AND they are easier to find.
Jalapenos would be another choice. Red ones even better but again they are hard to find.
The goal is to add some spicy heat to the sweet sauce not overtake the sweetness with so much heat it’s unpleasant.
A NOTE ON ADDING CORNSTARCH TO THICKEN
Making a slurry of the cornstarch and liquid prevents the cornstarch from clumping when added to the sweet chili sauce.
This is true when adding cornstarch to any sauce to thicken it.
In this case it is mixed with the lime juice and a teaspoon of water.
If you were to add the cornstarch directly to the heated chili sauce it would break into little clumps that are very difficult to incorporate.
The slurry blends easily and provides a thickening effect without micro clumps of cornstarch.
As the sauce simmers and after it cools, the cornstarch will thicken the sauce.
HOW TO MAKE IT – STEP-BY-STEP
STEP 1: Dice the chilies, garlic, ginger and lime zest. I do this in a mini chopper as shown below (photo 1). It can also be done by hand.
Photo 2 shows the size of the diced ingredients.
STEP 2: Combine the sugar, vinegar and water and bring to a boil (photo 3). Stir a few times to dissolve the sugar.
STEP 3: Add the diced ingredients plus a pinch of salt (photo 4). Boil for 10 minutes.
STEP 4: In a small bowl combine the cornstarch (or arrowroot), the lime juice and 1 teaspoon of water (photo 5). Stir together to make a slurry (photo 6).
STEP 5: Reduce heat to low. Add the slurry and smoked paprika (photo 7). Simmer for 5 minutes.
Remove from heat at add to glass jars or bottles (photo 8).
HOW TO MAKE IT SPICIER
The heat in a chile pepper comes largely from the seeds.
Removing the seeds will make it less spicy. Adding the seeds bumps the heat up a notch.
Also different chile peppers have different degrees of spicy heat. This is measured on something called the Scoville Scale.
It ranks peppers by how hot they are hottest to no spice peppers.
In this case cayenne peppers are considerably hotter than serrano peppers which are hotter than jalapenos.
Using the scale when deciding which peppers to use can help control the heat of your sauce.
WHY ISN’T IT RED?
The sweet chili sauce from the store is red from the type of chili peppers used or from red chili flakes.
Since this recipe uses a green Serrano chile pepper it has more of a green color.
But tastes just as delicious as the red version.
HOW TO USE IT
Thai sweet chili sauce is one of the most versatile sauces thanks to the delicious blend of sweet and slightly spicy flavor.
Thai Sweet Chili Sauce
This Homemade Thai Sweet Chili Sauce has so much flavor with red chilis, garlic and ginger. An exotic sauce that’s sweet and spicy, a perfect dipping sauce, marinade and flavor booster! Known as name chim (น้ำจิ้มไก่) which means “dipping sauce for chicken”.
- Prep Time:10 minutes
- Cook Time:50 minutes
- Total Time:1 hour
- Course: Condiment, Sauce
- Cuisine: Thai
- Keyword: Creamy Sweet Chili Sauce, sweet hot sauce, Sweet Thai Chilli Sauce, Thai Sweet Chili Sauce
- Servings: 3 cups
Ingredients
- ½ lb /250g red Thai Chili Peppers 50/50 deseeded
- 2 cups white vinegar
- 2 cups water
- 2 cups sugar
- 6 cloves garlic minced
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon grated ginger
- 1 tablespoon potato starch can use corn starch
Instructions
- Chop chilis either coarsely if you are using a stick blender, or finely if you are not. Remove the seeds from at least 50% of your chillis, which leave make this a medium/hot chilli sauce. For a mild sauce, deseed all but 1 or 2 chili peppers.
- In a pot, mix all the ingredients except the cornstarch and bring to a boil. Reduce heat ans simmer for 30-45 minutes, or until mixtures reduces by half.
- Using a stick blender, blend the vinegar mixture until it reaches desired consistency. I don’t blend to death, but leave a few chunky pieces and seeds as it will continue to cook down. Be very careful, the vinegar mixture is extremely hot and you will burn yourself if any splashes on you during the blending. Alternatively, you can allow to cool for a bit before blending, or chop chilis finely, so you don’t need to blend.
- Return to stove, bring back to a simmer. Take 1 tablespoon of cornstarch and mix with 2 tablespoons of cold water making a slurry. Add the corn starch slurry to the chilli sauce and cook for a few minutes until it thickens. Stir throughout and allow to cook and thicken for a few minutes. If desired thickness of sauce isn’t reached, add one more teaspoon of cornstarch with 2 teaspoons of water, and repeat process.
- Allow to cool before bottling.
Notes
*Burning disclaimer- vinegar mixture is very hot, do not burn yourself.
Top Health Benefits of Bell Peppers
Bell peppers are sweeter than they are spicy, which might be the reason why they are so popular. Bell peppers can be green, yellow, red, or orange. Of the three, red bell peppers contain the most nutrients, but all are still great for your health.
- Eye Health: Bell peppers contain over 30 different types of carotenoids including alpha-carotene, beta-carotene, and lycopene. Carotenoids are a phytonutrient family that is responsible for the bright red, yellow and orange coloring in many fruits and vegetables. Researchers have found that they help heal eyes and ward off eye disease because they absorb damaging blue light entering the eyes.
- Prevent Cancer: Carotenoids also have powerful antioxidant effects that can prevent certain types of cancers. Carotenoids deactivate cell-damaging oxygen atoms that react with other molecules in your body. Allowing the bell peppers to ripen will ensure that they have the most antioxidants possible.
- Boosts Immunity: Though ripening bell peppers maximizes antioxidants, it also increases the amount of Vitamin C they have in them. One cup of sliced red bell peppers can give you 157% of your daily vitamin C content, making them a great way to stay healthy.
- Balances Mood: If you are feeling blue, try to increase the amount of vitamin B6 you consume. Vitamin B6 can be found in bell peppers, and can help your brain produce serotonin and norepinephrine, two chemicals that can affect your mood.
- Natural Sleep Aid: Not able to fall asleep at night? The B6 vitamin found in bell peppers also aids in melatonin production, which your body needs to regulate its internal clock.
- Weight Loss: Bell peppers are low in fat and calories- about 1 gram of fat and 29 calories per cup; This makes them an ideal snack option, or a great side for a main meal. This small amount of fat is enough to provide a reliable source of fat-soluble nutrients.
- Beautiful Skin: Along with the previously mentioned vitamins, bell peppers also contain a solid amount of Vitamin E, which helps keep the skin looking fresh and young, and hair strong and vibrant.
- Lowers Cholesterol: Capsaicin is a nutrient that lowers the levels of cholesterol in your system. Although bell peppers contain less capsaicin than their spicier cousins, they do have some. That’s good news for those with high cholesterol, because bell peppers can help lower cholesterol.
- Helps With Pain: Bell peppers can help alleviate chronic pain in a couple ways. Vitamin C and vitamin K, both found in bell peppers, have anti-inflammatory properties, which reduces swelling and protects against osteoporosis.
- Heart Healthy: The anti-inflammatory properties in bell pepper also lowers inflammation in arteries. That means that bell peppers help prevent heart disease and diabetes.