It’s no surprise to us that the very first video we created was our fermented jalapeno hot sauce recipe. It’s been a long-time favorite in our house and we didn’t think we’d be able to improve on it, but we were wrong!
Recently after making hard cider, we had some sour leftover apples and pondered what we could do with them. After putting two and two together, we’ve come up with our fermented green apple jalapeno hot sauce!
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Fermenting Peppers for Homemade Hot Sauce
If you want to make your own homemade hot sauce you’ll find a lot of recipes but you might notice that the majority of them call for vinegar. Typically a hot sauce recipe will be the following: add all of your ingredients to a blender and blend it into a pepper mash, cook the pepper mash in a pot, and then strain it off into bottles.
But here at The Fermentation Adventure we’re not typical. We’re making lacto-fermented hot sauce! This means we’re not using any kind of vinegar and instead making our own vinegar using a salt brine. What we’re doing is using the natural fermentation process to create lactic acid and acetic acid which give that pleasant vinegar-like flavor and aroma.
How we do that is by submerging our peppers in a salt brine and then allow our friendly bacteria and yeasts to break down the peppers releasing delicious flavors for our homemade hot sauce! We’ve been making it this way for years and love the flavor so much! It’s truly unique.
Green Apple Jalapeno Fermented Hot Sauce Recipe
Makes 1 quart mason jar
This fermented hot sauce is sure to impress your friends and family with an out-of-this-world flavor! Pour some over a rice bowl, enjoy it on a burrito, or use it any way you’d normally use hot sauce. Wait until your first taste. You’ll seriously be hooked! 🍏🌶️
Equipment:
- 1 quart Mason Jar
- Wide-mouth leak-proof mason jar lids – for shaking up the jar without leaking
- Fermentation weight <– We love these!
- Fermentation lid <– These silicone lids work well for us
Ingredients for homemade apple jalapeno hot sauce:
- Jalapeno peppers, green or red (enough to fill 1/2 of the jar or ~8 ounces)
- 1 granny smith apple, sliced or diced
- 1/4 onion, sliced thin
- 4 garlic cloves, smashed
- 4 sprigs cilantro
- Salt brine: Non-chlorinated water + sea salt to taste (we use a ratio of 1 tsp. to 1 cup water)
Wash your peppers and apple and make sure to dry to remove the chlorinated water.
Slice or dice your apple. We’re choosing a Granny Smith apple since it’s sweet, sour, and will add a lot of good flavor.
Slice your onions into thin slices and cut your peppers into rounds. You might want to wear gloves! The spicy capsaicin in the peppers will stay on your hands so make sure not to rub your eyes if you’re not wearing gloves!
Start filling your jar however you like with the ingredients. We like to do layers so we can watch each layer as it ferments and also get a good idea of how much of each ingredient is filling the jar. A third of the jar should be apple, another third for the peppers, and the remaining third for the rest of your ingredients. Give it a shake and feel free to compact it down to fit more in the jar
Peel and smash your garlic to release that oh so good flavor and them add to the jar along with your cilantro. This should just about fill the jar except for maybe an inch or more at the top so the weight fits.
Mix up your salt brine and pour it in the jar to fill still leaving room at the top for your weight. We find that when we pack that jar, we need about 1 1/2 cups of brine.
Add your glass fermentation weight and press down if you need to get everything below the brine. Add your fermentation lid and you’re ready to ferment!
Ferment for about one to two weeks watching it to see how it’s coming along. We like about one week so we can get our hot sauce as quick as possible.
Transfer everything to a blender once you’re satisfied with the flavor and blend until smooth. At this point you can leave it as a nice thick sauce like we like or strain through a strainer, cheesecloth, or nut milk bag to make it more liquid like a traditional hot sauce.
Store in the refrigerator after your ferment is ready and enjoy within six months or so for the best flavor.
Green Apple Fermented Hot Sauce – What To Expect During Fermentation
On the first day the color of our peppers were bright green and the brine was very clear. By the second day we were noticing some bubbles forming in between the peppers, but not much else was happening in the jar.
By day three we noticed more action in the jar and there were a noticeable amount of new bubbles forming. When we shook the jar they all began to escape and race to the top. The brine was also starting to get a bit cloudy.
On days four, five, and six we were still seeing a lot of bubbles forming and the brine was continuing to get a little more cloudy. Fermentation was alive and well in this jar!
Normally we’ll ferment our peppers for a good 1-2 weeks or until we notice that the fermentation process starts slowing down. We wanted to go ahead and make our hot sauce so we were happy enough with six days. The jar smelled delicious with a nice vinegar, onion and garlic smell and when we opened the jar and removed the glass weight, it was beautiful!
The last test was the taste test. We tried a little bit of the onion and one of the peppers and we loved the taste so we went ahead and blended it up. With our finished green apple hot sauce on our spoons, we gave it the first real taste test and were in heaven! It was spicy, sweet, and vinegary all at the same time. So delicious! If you ferment longer from two weeks even up to a month, you’ll be totally fine and we’re sure the flavor will be great.
Lacto-Fermented Hot Sauce With Fruit – So Good!
Fermented hot sauce is so delicious by itself but once you add fruit like sour apples to it, WOW! What an incredible flavor addition! We’re definitely going to keep experimenting with more great flavors like these for making homemade hot sauce.
If you have any unique ideas for flavor combinations or tried this recipe, let us know how it’s going! Leave a comment below and don’t forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel. Happy fermenting!
