Caribbean Kitchen: Five of the Best Hot Pepper Sauces in the Region
Nearly every kitchen in the Caribbean has a bottle of hot pepper sauce in it somewhere; whether homemade or store bought.
Traditional hot pepper sauce recipes feature scotch bonnet or habanero peppers, salt, garlic, spices, mustard and vinegar, along with various other additions.
Hot pepper sauce goes with almost everything and there are several brands in the region that have taken this condiment to new heights.
Let’s take a look at a few of them:
Hot Mama’s Belize was started in 2008 by Belizean Wilana Oldham and her American husband Howard. The company’s sauces are free from chemical additives or preservatives, and are also non-genetically modified, gluten free, and vegan. Hot Mama’s also offers a sweet pepper sauce for people who prefer sugar over spice.
Barbados-based brand Delish offers three kinds of hot sauce; Bajan pepper sauce, Red Hot Pepper Sauce, and Cucumber pepper sauce. The first two are for consumers who like their pepper sauce to be well and truly hot! The last one is for those who prefer a milder sensation.
Grace Foods caters for all tastes with its line of hot pepper sauces which range from spicy to hot and very hot. Using carefully selected scotch bonnet, Jamaican and Colombian habanero peppers, Grace’s sauces are popular around the region and many other parts of the world.
Established in 1979 by Edwin and Bonnie Zephirin, Viking is a family-owned business in St Lucia which produces several authentic Caribbean products, including award-winning hot pepper sauces. The Viking range includes mild, hot and ‘dam hot’ varieties, and promises the perfect combination of ‘flavour and heat’.
Described as “authentic, delicious and not for the faint of heart”, Alvin’s is an award-winning hot pepper sauce, created by Alvin Franklin, who is from Trinidad and grew up in the US Virgin Islands. Alvin’s sauces are homemade and combine Caribbean scotch bonnet peppers with papaya (also known as paw paw), spices, herbs, and locally grown vegetables from farmers in Trinidad.
Alvin’s has won several top food honours including first place in the ‘unique hot sauce’ category at the National 2019 Scovie Awards.
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You probably have a favourite hot pepper sauce brand, or maybe you’re lucky enough to have a tried-and-trusted family recipe so you can create your own.
Either way, there’s no doubt that hot pepper sauce is a must-have product in most Caribbean kitchens.
Sources: Craft Hot Sauce, Caribbean & Co, and Life in Trinidad and Tobago.