How to make a simple vinegar hot sauce from a tested recipe

Start with the National Center for Home Food Preservation's Cayenne Pepper Sauce, a recipe developed and tested at the University of Georgia. It uses 3 pounds of hot peppers, 1/3 cup of minced garlic, 4 cups of sliced onion, cilantro, three 28 ounce cans of diced tomatoes, 3 cups of 5 percent cider vinegar and 2½ cups of water, boiled for an hour, simmered for another, puréed and canned in pints. It makes about 5 pints [1]. Because it was tested, you can follow it exactly and know how it keeps. Ohio State's tomato and serrano sauce is a second tested choice [2]. Both recipes, the changes they allow and the ones they do not, follow.

Why this page uses a tested recipe

A tested recipe has been checked in a lab for how much acid the finished sauce carries and how long the jars must be processed to keep. When you change the amounts, that test no longer applies. Kansas State's peppers publication puts the rule plainly for mixed pepper products: you may swap one pepper variety for another, but the quantity of peppers must not change, or the product may become unsafe [3]. The same logic covers the vinegar, the onions and the tomatoes. Hot peppers on their own sit around pH 4.65 to 5.45 [4], above the pH 4.6 line where botulinum spores can germinate [5], so the balance of acid to low-acid ingredients is what the test protects.

Cayenne Pepper Sauce (NCHFP)

Developed at the University of Georgia for the National Center for Home Food Preservation, released by Elizabeth L. Andress, September 2003 [1]. The page notes that it is a very hot sauce.

Ingredients

Yield: about 5 pint jars [1].

Method, as the recipe gives it

1. Protect your hands. The recipe says: "Wear plastic or rubber gloves and do not touch your face while handling or cutting hot peppers." If you do not wear gloves, wash your hands thoroughly with soap and water before touching your face or eyes [1].
2. Prepare jars. Wash and rinse pint canning jars and keep them hot until ready to use. Prepare lids according to the manufacturer's directions [1].
3. Slice. Wash, trim and slice the peppers and onions into rings, using a mandolin slicer or a food processor [1].
4. Cook. Combine all ingredients in a 10 quart Dutch oven or stockpot. Bring to a boil and boil for 1 hour. Reduce the heat slightly and simmer for 1 more hour. Turn off the heat and let the mixture cool slightly [1].
5. Purée. Purée the vegetables in a blender, about 2 minutes per batch [1]. (A general kitchen precaution, not part of the recipe: fill the blender jar no more than half full with hot liquid, vent the lid and hold a towel over it.)
6. Reheat. Return the purée to the stockpot and bring it carefully just to a boil. The recipe warns that the mixture starts to spatter as it gets close to boiling, so heat it slowly while stirring constantly. Turn off the heat [1].
7. Fill. Fill hot sauce into hot, clean pint jars, leaving ½ inch headspace. Remove air bubbles and adjust headspace if needed. Wipe rims with a dampened, clean paper towel and apply two-piece metal canning lids [1].
8. Process in a boiling water canner (hot pack, pints) [1]:

9. Cool and check. Let the jars cool undisturbed for 12 to 24 hours, then check the seals [1]. A jar that has not sealed has not been through the tested process; keep it in the refrigerator and use it as you would an uncanned sauce.

The full canning procedure, including how to set up a boiling water canner, is on Canning hot sauce at home.

A second tested option: Ohio State's tomato and serrano sauce

Ohio State University Extension publishes a tested hot sauce built on canned tomatoes, from National Center for Home Food Preservation recipes (HYG-5365, Nicole Arnold, November 12, 2024) [2].

Yield: about 7 to 8 half-pint jars [2].

Method as published [2]: wash and rinse canning jars and keep them hot until ready to use; prepare lids according to the manufacturer's directions. Tie the pickling spices in a spice bag, combine all ingredients and bring to a boil. Simmer about 20 minutes, stirring often, until the tomatoes are soft, then remove the spice bag. Blend the mixture using a food mill and return it to the heat for an additional 15 minutes. Fill clean, hot half-pint jars, leaving ¼ inch headspace, wipe the rims with a dampened, clean paper towel and attach two-piece, lined, metal lids. Process in a boiling water canner for 10 minutes up to 1,000 ft, 15 minutes from 1,001 to 6,000 ft, and 20 minutes above 6,000 ft. Cool undisturbed 12 to 24 hours and check seals.

Storage as published [2]: if you do not want to can, Ohio State says you can cool and freeze the sauce or refrigerate it instead, and it advises using refrigerated sauce fairly quickly. The fact sheet gives no refrigerator time; the keeping times for home sauces are on How long homemade hot sauce lasts.

Ohio State also warns against tomatoes from dead, overripe or frost-killed vines, which may be less acidic [2]. The recipe calls for canned tomatoes.

Choosing between them

If you want a sauce that tastes like a classic red pepper sauce, make the NCHFP recipe. If you want something closer to a spiced tomato hot sauce, make Ohio State's.

Changes the tested recipes allow

These keep you within the tested proportions.

• Swap peppers of similar weight. The NCHFP recipe names Anaheim, Hungarian or jalapeño. Using one of these in place of another, or a mix, pound for pound, keeps the quantity the same, which is what Kansas State's rule for pepper mixtures requires [3]. A milder pepper gives a milder sauce; a hotter one gives a hotter sauce. Heat ranges by variety are on Hot sauce peppers by flavor and heat.
• Keep the vinegar amount and strength exactly. Use vinegar labeled 5 percent acidity, which Ohio State notes may also be labeled "50 grain" [2], in the amount and type the recipe names.
• Keep everything else as written: the tomatoes, onion, garlic, water, salt, cooking times, jar size, headspace and processing time.
• Change the texture after opening. If you want a thinner, pourable sauce, strain a jar's worth through a fine-mesh strainer after you open it and keep the strained sauce in the refrigerator. Straining before canning is not part of either tested method.

Changes that are untested

Anything beyond the list above takes the sauce outside its test. That includes less vinegar or a different vinegar, more garlic or onion, adding fruit or carrot, a different amount of peppers, adding oil, straining before filling, and changing the jar size. A sauce changed this way has no tested process. Do not can it for the pantry; keep it in the refrigerator. No formula for those changes is given here, because none has been tested. If you make them, measure the finished sauce with a calibrated pH meter so you know where it landed; Measuring pH explains how, and Adding fruit, garlic and vegetables explains why low-acid additions matter.

For comparison only, commercial cayenne-style sauces carry far more salt and acid than either home recipe suggests by taste: the USDA purchase specification for a standard "hot" sauce (Type I) calls for 2.4 to 5.0 percent acidity as acetic acid, 4.9 to 12.0 percent salt and a pH of 3.4 or below [6]. Those figures describe a commercial product. They are not a recipe.

If the finished sauce is too hot or too mild

That is the most common complaint about a first batch, and you can fix it in the bowl without changing the canned recipe. Making a sauce milder or hotter covers blending and serving fixes, and which ones move the sauce outside its tested limits.

References

1. National Center for Home Food Preservation, Cayenne Pepper Sauce, Elizabeth L. Andress, University of Georgia, September 2003. https://nchfp.uga.edu/how/can/how-do-i-can-tomatoes/cayenne-pepper-sauce
2. Ohio State University Extension, Making and Preserving Barbecue and Hot Sauces (HYG-5365), Nicole Arnold (original 2018 version by Abigail Snyder), November 12, 2024. https://ohioline.osu.edu/factsheet/hyg-5365
3. Kansas State University Research and Extension, Preserve it Fresh, Preserve it Safe: Peppers (MF1186), revised by Karen Blakeslee, April 2026. https://bookstore.ksre.ksu.edu/pubs/MF1186.PDF
4. Clemson Cooperative Extension, pH Values of Common Foods and Ingredients, undated table. https://www.clemson.edu/extension/food/_files/ph-of-common-foods-table.pdf
5. Breidt, Sandeep and Arritt, Use of Linear Models for Thermal Processing of Acidified Foods, Food Protection Trends 30(5):268-272, May 2010. https://site.extension.uga.edu/foodscienceandtechnology/files/2023/07/Breidt-et-al-2010-Below-4.1.pdf
6. USDA Agricultural Marketing Service, Commercial Item Description A-A-20097G: Hot Sauce, July 12, 2019. https://www.ams.usda.gov/sites/default/files/media/AA20097GHotSauce.pdf