You know the saying “When life give you lemons, make lemonades out of them’? Well, when your garden or a very resourceful grandma or mother-in-law or even the grocery shop (discount sales) gives you peppers, make hot sauce.

Homemade hot sauce is another way to cut out on processed foods and it will only take 15 minutes to make.

Why hot sauce though? Today is Hot Sauce Day and lovers of spicy food are just getting fired up to have a hot day. Nigerians love spicy food, even though some folks attribute this love to Yoruba folks mostly.

You’ll see the love for hot spices in meals like pepper soup, fried stew, barbeque, suya, dips for fries, asun, etc. And more interestingly, research has proven that an active component of chilli peppers – CAPSAICIN, promotes a high turnover of cells in the body, this would explain why eating spicy foods has been linked to a reduced risk of mortality and slowed cancer development.

Something to note before you begin: your hot sauce does not have to be ridiculously spicy. Just make it hot enough to suit your taste buds, so pick your peppers wisely.

INGREDIENTS:

• 20 Peppers
• Vinegar
• Minced Fresh Garlic

We recommend you use some gloves because of the wild feeling of some of these peppers. You don’t want your hands and mouth burning at the same time, as that could be most uncomfortable. Plus, the oils from the pepper can leach through the water as you wash without even knowing it or without any immediate reactions. And then 30 minutes or an hour later, you rub your eye, scratch your nose with the same hands and you just know that you’ve been peppered.

So, back to the main issue: making the hot sauce. Let’s take the steps one after another. C’mon!

1. Wash your peppers thoroughly. Just because they are organic produce doesn’t mean they are free of dirt.
2. Cut off the heads of the pepper and slice in half.
3. Pour the sliced pepper into a medium-sized pan/pot. Add vinegar, salt and garlic.
4. Boil the mixture at low heat till all the peppers are soft.
5. Pour the boiled mixture into a blender.
6. Blend it all, including the seeds

You now have in your hands, a weapon of mass use. You can preserve this in the freezer after you have poured into a squeezy tube or container, and enjoy with eggs, rice, burgers, fries, hotdogs, steak and barbeque.

Enjoy your hot-sauce!