The not so hot, hot sauce thread.

We have had hot sauce threads before, like this one. David's Hot Sauce Thread

As a general rule, I don't like most hot sauces. They are very one-dimensional to me and most of the ones I have tasted seem to be more about how hot they can get them instead of the flavor. Anything hotter than cayenne pepper is wasted on me and I use cayenne sparingly. 

That said, a friend gave me a bottle of Zatarain's Cajun Hot Sauce. It's a very simple sauce made with red pepper, vinegar, salt, garlic, and some other spices. I tried it a couple of days ago and it goes with chicken like salt goes with pepper. Not too hot, not too mild but has a really nice pepper flavor. I really liked it.

Another hotish sauce I like is chili oil which is basically sesame oil with chili pepper. It's tasty on ramen or beef. 

I have to imagine there are a number of low to medium-heat hot sauces that are more about the flavor than the heat, but I don't want to wade through 50 bottles of heat to find the few flavorful ones. 

To give you a scale, 

The original Texas Pete is hotter than I like and not a flavor I like. 

I do like the Texas Pete Green Pepper Sauce. It's great on beans and such. I tend to prefer vinegar-based sauces. 

I actually like Taco Bell's Fire sauce on Mexican foods. A touch of heat with other flavors.

Buffalo and cilantro are right out. I really don't like either one of them. 

Give me some other sauces to try that aren't nuclear-flavored. Subtle heat is better than something that shouts it in my face. 

We go through a lot of Tabasco Chipotle hot sauce, its not too hot and has some flavor.  Cholula Chipotle is also good but not real hot.

I'm a big fan of Cholula. Just a bit of heat but great flavor. I recently discovered Tapatio. I blew through the 10oz bottle in a week. Then I discovered my local grocery store carries Tapatio in 32oz bottles.

My fridge always has Tabasco and Green Tabasco as well.

We recently discovered La Botanera:

Another one of those flavorful but not too spicy sauces that you can just about drink. It's awesome and even my 7 year old loves it. My old standby though is Valentina which is super tasty and again, not *too* spicy:

Get the regular not the extra hot. The extra hot is too hot you can't use as much sauce then!

Flavour > Heat.

Tabasco is awful and so is Frank's.

Sriracha is my go-to but someone bought me a bottle of bourbon hot sauce for Christmas which is very good.

Tabasco Chipotle flavor, Cholua, and in a pinch, Tapatio. 

Those are about the only hot sauces I use that aren't made in a restaurant or my kitchen.

Aaron_King said:

We go through a lot of Tabasco Chipotle hot sauce, its not too hot and has some flavor.  Cholula Chipotle is also good but not real hot.

Ding ding ding ding! +1 on both of these. The Cholula Chipotle has a bit more intense flavor, but the Tabasco is easier to find in pretty much any grocery store and is really, really good. More flavor than heat, but enough heat that it lets you know there's a bit of spice there. But not even someone who was raised thinking bananas were spicy would find this uncomfortable. Very mainstream heat level. It's not smoky, either, but has a really nice roastsed flavor. I just adore the stuff and keep bottles all over as emergency stashes.

This thread speaks my love language.  While I agree that the superduper hot sauces have their respective places, I personally like my hot sauces like I like my cannabis-  Mid as hell.  I don't want to melt my face off every day... Just give me a good daily driver and I'm happy. 

Personally, my desk has two sauces at all times-  Straight, plain old tabasco OG, and Melinda's Honey Habanero mustard... It pretty much covers all major lunch groups...

In reply to Toyman! :

Hot sauces were the IPAs of the Oughties:  a way to feel superior to the plebs who couldn't train their palates to enjoy the extremeness.

I'm a big fan of the smoked Cholula and Tabasco sauces.

Discovered this stuff in Costa Rica. Not hot at all, but essential to make gallo pinto (beans and rice) like a Tico. Also uhmazing on eggs.

I opened this thread hoping for a list of hot sauces that everyone was disappointed in because they did not live up to expectations. 

How sad.

When I use mild sauces, I am a big fan of Tabasco Chipotle and the many variations of Herdez salsa.

When I use hot sauces, I usually make them myself. Doing so tends to bypass the one-dimensional note that many "extra-spicy" sauces have.

cholula chili garlic is the goto in our house...  

I keep this in the fridge at all times 

Secret Aardvark is my favorite when I want something that's not very spicy but has a lot of flavor. 

In reply to Recon1342 :

I luuuuuuuvvvv the Herdez guacamole salsa, but I didn't mention it because it's not really a hot sauce.

I also like the Mateo's line of salsas, in the heat of your choice.

Honestly, original Tabasco, I think, is hard to beat. I don't think it's the spiciest, but it smells amazing, and tastes like it smells. Peppers, salt, vinnegar. Simple. I'm not a huge fan of their other flavor sauces.

My friend used to make a Habanero hot sauce with those principles in mind (utter simplicity). It was tons of Habaneros, vinnegar, and salt. In my memory, it glows orange, even in the dark. It lived in an old Patron bottle. It was excellent, but also very intense. We grew some Habaneros later on and used those. It's hard to beat a hot sauce that you grew in your back yard. Just... don't be the first to use the blender after he makes that stuff.

Franks Red Hot is great on breakfast burritos. I didn't have that (or Tabasco) this morning, so I used Sriracha, but that doesn't quite work as well on a burrito.

ShawnG said:

Flavour > Heat.

Tabasco is awful and so is Frank's.

Sriracha is my go-to

I mostly agree, 'cept I like Franks on wings. I love Sriracha, but it doesn't work on everything.

This is my favourite for Carribean, and/or curry. It's very flavourful without being too hot. I first had it in St. Lucia and was surprised to find it here when we got back. I have a similar one from Barbados that is very hot.

EDIT: Found the one from Barbados. It's hot. I cook with it and use the above one at the table.

I get it at a local small town Jamaican restaurant. If you're eating in and you take a bottle off the counter for your table they rush over and warn you before you do something stupid.

This stuff is so mild I can't even taste any hotness, but it is delicious!

Next up is El Yucateco brand - found just about anywhere - flavorful but mostly mild. The Black Lable one is not hot, but either you hate it or love it - very polarizing. It tastes like dirt to me.

Finally, Walmart has little "taster" bottles from different companies that run 50 cents to a dollar each. None are hot to me. It's a great way to try new stuff. They are found in a freestanding display somewhere in grocery.

Humble House Ancho & Morita is spectacular and not super hot.

I hate hot things, horseradish is about as high as I'll go, but I love this stuff. 

JG Pasterjak said:

But not even someone who was raised thinking bananas were spicy would find this uncomfortable.

OMG i just snarfed Diet Vernors.  It isn't pretty.

A little off the wall, but I am partial to Outerbridge's Sherry Peppers sauce in soups (especially creamy soup) and that kind of thing.  Discovered it when we went to Bermuda once.

I am sticking with Cholula .

Part of the reason I like it is the wooden cap.

Random thing I noticed two nights ago while using some of the Tobasco Chipotle sauce... Anybody ever experience times when they're awfully sensitive to capsaicin? It happens to me occasionally that the Tobasco Chipotle sauce makes me sweat and reach for the milk. It is not at all spicy, honestly. I can handle hot stuff easily - I go to Thai restaurants and convince them to make it Thai spicy for me, and love it. But every once in a blue moon, the mild Tobasco Chipotle sauce will have me tearing up. Why? 

Noddaz said:

I am sticking with Cholula .

Part of the reason I like it is the wooden cap.

You know... you're not wrong. Cholula is good. The cap really is part of the appeal, too.

What about longevity? How long can a bottle last? I don't sauce everything, and my wife is part of the banana is spicy crowd like JG so I don't go through it very fast. I think I tossed half a bottle of Cholula that had a best buy date of 6 months ago. Was that wrong?