Garlic Hot Sauces

What a garlic hot sauce actually tastes like

Garlic turns up in more of our sauces than any other ingredient. About seven in ten of them list it. The sauces in this collection are the ones where it leads rather than supports, and that changes what the bottle is for: less of a condiment you sprinkle, more of a seasoning you cook with.

Roasted, fresh, fermented or black

Raw garlic is sharp and hot in its own right. Roasting turns it sweet and mellow, fermenting rounds it out and adds a savory depth, and black garlic (whole bulbs held for weeks in gentle heat until the cloves turn soft and almost black) tastes of molasses, balsamic and dried fruit. About one in five of these sauces uses black garlic, usually against a dark, heavy pepper like ghost or Carolina reaper.

How hot these get

Garlic sauces cover the whole scale. Close to half are medium, with the rest split between mild, hot and extra hot. Habanero and jalapeño are the usual peppers, together in about half the collection, and lime turns up in four in ten bottles to keep all that richness from going flat.

How to use it

Wings, tacos and pizza come up most often, then eggs and burgers. A garlic sauce is also the easiest kind to cook into something: stir it through butter for garlic bread, whisk it into a vinaigrette, add a spoonful to mayo for a sandwich, or use it to finish steak and roast vegetables.

Buying your first one

If you want the flavor every day, start with a roasted-garlic sauce at mild or medium. If you already know you like garlic, a black-garlic bottle is the one worth trying: it tastes like nothing else on the shelf, and the sweetness carries a lot of heat without a fight.