check out ... Lynn's recipe on the kitchentable thread

Why not take a copycat recipe for Frank's and make it with green chilis?

Thanks, Bragu, her first ingredient is oil, and then 2 cups of chicken broth and no vinegar. Totally opposite of what i’m looking for.

plllog, good idea! Do you have a good copycat recipe? I searched and only found one, with a 4.5 rating.

No, sorry, I don't have one. I don't actually like Frank's. So, I looked at their website and found that Franks is made from cayenne, which is harder to find fresh and green. Wing sauce: DISTILLED VINEGAR, AGED CAYENNE RED PEPPERS, SALT, WATER, CANOLA OIL, PAPRIKA, XANTHAN GUM, NATURAL BUTTER TYPE FLAVOR AND GARLIC POWDER.

Original Red Hot: AGED CAYENNE RED PEPPERS, DISTILLED VINEGAR, WATER, SALT AND GARLIC POWDER.

So, my "hot sauce" recipe is usually serranos (which are easy to get green (here), though I usually use red), something acidic (vinegar or tomatoes or lemon), salt and pepper. That's it. Roast, bag and peel the peppers, then heat on low to med-low with the rest and blend until smooth. Seeds or not, your choice. You can make the same kind of thing with any fleshy pepper.

I prefer roasted, but you can go raw. I think Frank's tastes raw.

What I'm trying to say, is that you don't really need a recipe. Find the chilis you like, vinegar you like, seasoning and aromatics you like, and whirr them up. Roast the peppers or not as you prefer. If it's too hot or thick, add some water. It'll be enough like Frank's, but green. If it's not right or not what you want or like, try again.

Yup, I figured. I’ll just experiment then. Thanks.

btw, plllog, I didn’t mean that I wanted it to taste exactly like Red Hot. I meant I wanted a green hot sauce that was similar in texture and based on vinegar (vs based on chicken broth, or chunky, or whatever). I know that someone who used to post here many years ago had posted recipes like I want, but I just can’t find them. And I realize that I can experiment — I do that all the time — I was just looking for a good starting point on amounts and technique used.

Ha! I finally found it! the Green Dragon Sauce from KatieC:

https://www.gardenweb.com/discussions/2448051/hot-sauce-recipes-anyone

Excellent! Green jalapeños should be easy to find. Katie's is essentially the same thing as I said, but, as you said, a jumping off point with specifics. Jalapeños can be highly variable in heat. If they've been in the sun, and a bit warm, you can sometimes smell how hot they are. Just in case, you might want to wear gloves and eye protection, as if they were hotter peppers.

“If they've been in the sun, and a bit warm, you can sometimes smell how hot they are.”

Very true! I picked some jalapenos yesterday for salsa and could smell the heat. My hands are so sensitive I can’t cut even one without gloves. Unlike DH, I’m a bit of a wimp and jalapenos are about as hot as I can go on the heat scale.

In the past, I have pickled jalapeños, but I always used ripe (red) ones instead of green - I just like the flavor better.

I start with the jar I want to use and add strips of jalapeños. Then I boil a mixture of one part water and two parts white vinegar with some garlic cloves and a good deal of salt. I've never measured the salt, but you can use quite a bit because you won't be using much of the final sauce at one time.

After simmering the garlic cloves in vinegar and brine for 10 minutes, I let the mixture cool a bit and then pour it into the jar with the chilies. I let that sit for about an hour, and then I purée it with a stick blender or in a regular blender, depending on how big the jar was. I tended to make fairly small batches and preferred to use the stick blender.

Here's how I make Habanero sauce, but you could substitute Serrano or jalapeñ chilies, and you would not need a snorkel. You could also omit the red bell pepper - I add that to extend the sauce a bit, as it is super picante.

Thanks for the link, Lars! I remember that post and your peppers and sauce look fabulous!

Sorry, I was gone and this was on the big Mac. This is a very good and simple recipe. Just use green jalepinos and it will be a beautiful green color. And, it lasts a long time.

Red Devil Sauce

Lee Fanucchi's (Fresno County Master Gardener)

1 pound of jalapeno peppers
1 cup cider vinegar
2 tablespoons salt
2-3 cloves of garlic

Place in blender and push "chop" button to process adding peppers as you go. Place in glass jar and store in refrigerator. Will last up to two years. Can use either red or green peppers. (Mixed colors make a yukky colors.)

Fresno Bee
Setember 13, 2001

^That looks like the right proportions, with about 14 jalapeños in one pound, I think. I diluted my vinegar with a little bit of water, but it would keep better if straight vinegar is used - it just has a very strong vinegar flavor.

I might try making some anyway because I am out of hot sauce, but I have 8 Serrano chilies in the refrigerator. I think I forgot the bring the garlic back with me, and so I might have to wait until I buy more.

I think July is garlic season, and so there should be new California garlic in the stores now.

Lars, last summer I had all sorts of hot peppers and made this recipe with all of them. It was the best ever. My DIL can hardly wait for this year's version.

Strange, but it doesn't taste terribly vinegary.

It's definitely garlic season here, Lars. I started harvesting mine yesterday and it looks good!

Thank you for that recipe, Kate! But wait, the peppers are just chopped and not cooked? You don't strain it or even boil the vinegar? Doesn't that make it more like a crisp hot pepper relish?

I'm a pickled jalapeno and hot pepper relish junky. I eat a lot of it and things like it. :O)

I put all in the food blender and pureé it smooth. No, nothing is cooked. You could cook it and can it, if you like. But this is easy and tastes great.

ok, thank you. Can’t wait to try it. Now I just need my peppers to grow! :)

I made some green hot sauce yesterday, and I used seven Serrano and seven (I think) jalapeño chilies, which made a pound. I simmered three or four cloves of garlic in 1/3 cup water with 2/3 cups white vinegar and 2 Tbsp salt for 10 minutes, and then turned off the heat without removing the lid from the pan.

While the pan was off heat, I deseeded the chilies and cut them into quarters. Then I put the chilies into the pan with the garlic and simmered again for ten more minutes, as I wanted to see what this would do to the flavor. Normally I leave them raw, but I thought I might get a better flavor if I cooked them for a bit. After simmering, I let the pan cool while still covered.

Then I put all of the contents into my blender and puréed it on high speed. It still had texture to it probably because I did not cook the chilies all the way through, but I'm okay with that.

I ended up with about 24 oz of sauce, but that is just an estimate made from the calibrations on the blender. It looked like less than than when I poured it into jars.

I would have left the garlic uncooked, but otherwise it sounds like it should work fine. How did it taste, Lars?! Since these recipes aren't specifically saying that the peppers should have seeds removed, I've assumed everyone was grinding up whole peppers. Kate, do you deseed your peppers or grind them whole? I'm growing both jalapenos and serranos this year, so when they are ready, I'll be ready. lol!

I take off the stems. I don't remember taking out the seeds. The sauce would be very mild without them.

I made some scrambled eggs today with the sauce, and the sauce is plenty hot even without seeds, but then jalapeños are a bit unpredictable. The taste was good, but it was still more heat than chili flavor. I added Monterey Jack cheese to the eggs and had them with toast, but they would have been better with corn tortilla, which I am out of at the moment.

Even when recipes do not specify whether to use the seeds, I generally do remove the seeds, mainly for texture.

Here's an interesting article on chilies and their seeds.

According to this article, the seeds do not contain capsaicin, which is concentrated more in the pith, and I do use the pith for this reason. So I removed seeds and kept the pith in my sauce. Next time I probably just leave the seeds in, although I do not know whether you can digest them or not. They are supposed to be high in vitamin C.

Cool article, Lars.

So, my Mexican friend makes a fresh salsa picante every couple of days. A couple small tomatoes and a jalapeño, cooked together with a clove of garlic, S&P. Very simple. Very fresh.

Interesting article, Lars. I learned something new. (Never too old.... and all that.)

I was given a salsa with an omelette on a flight to the Azores, a combination I never would have tried. In hindsight, it was probably actually Malagueta (a spicy sauce/salsa made with Malagueta peppers, without tomatoes). In any case, I now love eggs with hot sauce or salsa! yum!

I read the article and I'm not buying that hot pepper seeds aren't hot. They put the seeds into Utica-grind hot peppers for a reason! And I often control the heat in a dish by removing or leaving the seeds. Granted, the membrane is hot too, but I've bit into many seeds that gushed heat to say they weren't hot. :)

This is entertaining too, and informative: https://www.bbc.com/news/health-39217603

PM, I have the same reaction, but scientifically, it's not true. But think on it—did you clean the chili slime carefully off those seeds? What they're telling us is the the heat of the seeds is in the slime coating them, rather than inside. New to me, too, but I accept it. My mother taught me, when I was a child, how piracantha is found everywhere because of the birds...(see link),

plllog, but the seed is in my mouth and it's not hot *until* I bite into it.... and my seeds aren't slimey. lol! Now between my hot pepper intake and my coffee intake, I figure I'll live forever. :)

I read an article many years ago that gave the full scientific explanation of why sweet peppers could be hot if they got cross-pollinated by a hot pepper, simply because the SEEDS in the sweet pepper (result of the cross) would be hot. I cannot find that source now though.

I'm going to try washing some seeds and then biting into them to see what happens. I think I might try seeds form chile de árbol, since I have a lot of those.

I wonder why they keep the seeds in red pepper (or cayenne) chili flakes.

Lars, I look forward to hearing the results of your tests. I just picked my first few cherry tomatoes yesterday, and my first long hot peppers today! We got an inch of rain on Monday and the peppers have gone crazy.

PM, "slime" was meant as colorful, not literal. It's supposed to mean what the pith leaves on the seeds. I'm looking forward to Lars's test results too. I have some mostly seeds in the bottom of a crushed red pepper jar, and I've used them, and they do seem milder, but I ascribed that to age, not knowing about the no heat in the seed thing until reading articles just now, from this thread. I could see how biting could activate the heat on the outside of the seed, but I don't have your experience. I'm keeping an open mind.

I know that, plllog! :p lol about ‘my experience’. One of my long hots yesterday was very hot — I avoided eating the seeds. :O)

I finished my test of the chile de árbol seeds and concluded that they indeed do not contain capsaicin. I washed the seeds twice, strained them, and dried them with a paper towel. Then I chewed some very carefully, and I could not distinguish any taste whatsoever, nor any heat. Therefore, you might as well remove them because they have a terrible texture, but I have read that they contain vitamins. I don't know whether you can digest them enough to extract the vitamins, however.

Anyway, I will continue to remove the seeds from my chilies because they add nothing except a bad texture.

If you have fresh chilies that are too hot, you should remove both the pith or membrane that holds the seeds as well as the seeds. If you do not wash the seeds, they will have residue from the membrane, and that will be hot, but not the seeds themselves.

Thank you, Lars, for being our guine pig on this one. its good to know ill take out the seeds too

Wow, I will need to do this test with friends! Lars, did you eat some unwashed seeds to compare?! and did you wash the seeds with only water or did you use soap to remove the oils? If it’s capsaicin coating the seeds that causes the seeds to seem hot, then leaving seeds in will add to the heat level just due to the capsaicin on them.

It's difficult to believe that just water would wash away the capsaicin, but I must try the experiment for myself.

I soaked the seeds in water, rinsed them in water, and then rubbed them with a paper towel, and I repeated this process twice. I don't think it was 100% successful in washing away the capsaicin, but it certainly seemed to get rid of almost all of it.

I'll have to see how it works with fresh chilies, which I have in the fridge right now, I will wait until we get back to L.A. before I do this.

I just finished my experiment with fresh jalapeño seeds, and they had absolutely zero heat. Since they were fresh, they were easier to clean, but I did rub them with paper towels after each wash, and I washed and rinsed them twice.

I had enough jalapeño seeds to eat a spoonful of them at one time, and they had essentially no flavor at all, except perhaps a bland green vegetable flavor, but they were not crunchy like the dried seeds, and were easier to chew. If they do have vitamins (and I imagine that they do), then it might be a good idea to leave the fresh seeds in, since they are not hard and crunchy like the dried seeds. This will certainly making using fresh hot chilies easier to use, but I will still remove seeds from red bell pepper - just out of habit. Maybe they have vitamins too, but everyone seems to remove them.

If you want to try an experiment, I recommend using fresh jalapeños instead of dried chilies.

I made another batch of green hot sauce, and this time I simmered the ingredients for 30 minutes. I used seven jalapeños and seven Serrano chilies, which weighed one pound altogether. I also used three or four garlic cloves, which I cut into four pieces each.

After it was done simmering, I let it rest for 30 more minutes covered to cool, and then I puréed it in my Vitamix blender, and so it came out very smooth. I did not remove any seeds (since they may have nutritional value), and they got completely puréed.

When I made the previous sauce (which I accidentally left in Cathedral City), I simmered it for only 5 minutes, and so the chilies did not get soft, and they did not purée smoothly, but then I was using a stick blender, which rarely purées completely. Anyway, I like the smooth texture of the sauce I made today. The heat level is the same as the one I made earlier, and I had removed all seeds (but not membranes) from that batch.

I prefer to make my own hot sauces rather than to buy them, and it is very much cheaper this way. Next time I will want to try roasting the chilies on the BBQ to get a smoky flavor.

Some of my jalapeno peppers are finally ready, so I picked 7 (5.2 oz) and decided to try a 'small' batch of jalapeno sauce. After reading through every similar type recipe that I could find, I removed stems and sliced jalapenos lengthwise. Chunked 1/2 small onion. Split 1 clove garlic. Added a little salt and 1/2 cup water and simmered it all until softened and water almost gone. Then let it cool a while, drained off any excess water, ran through a blender and then added 1/2 c. cider vinegar and adjusted salt. It's delicious! And it made 1.5 cups of sauce, so plenty for now. :)

Your recipe sounds really good. I'm going to try yours when my peppers get red.