Lime Hot Sauces

What a lime hot sauce actually tastes like

Lime is the most common citrus in hot sauce, and this is our second-biggest flavor collection for a reason: its acidity lifts a pepper's fruitiness, cuts through fat, and keeps a sauce tasting fresh rather than cooked. Put simply, lime is what makes a bottle taste like something you'd squeeze yourself.

It works at every heat level

Unusually, this collection is spread almost evenly across the scale: roughly a quarter mild, a third medium, a quarter hot and the rest extra hot. Habanero is in about half the bottles and jalapeño in a third, with serrano, ghost pepper and Carolina reaper behind them.

Salsa in a bottle

Garlic rides along in more than eight in ten of these sauces, onion in six in ten, and cilantro, cumin and tomato in a good share of the rest. That combination is why so many lime sauces taste like salsa verde or pico de gallo: the same ingredients, blended and bottled.

How to use it

Tacos above everything, then eggs, wings, chicken, pizza and burritos. Lime sauces are also the best ones to cook with when you want brightness rather than depth: over grilled fish, stirred through rice or black beans, or mixed with oil as a quick dressing for slaw.

Buying your first one

For everyday use, a mild or medium green sauce with lime, garlic and cilantro is the safest bet and the most useful bottle in the kitchen. If you want heat with the brightness kept intact, look at the habanero sauces here: lime and habanero is one of the great pairings, fruit against fruit.