The Best Gifts for Hot Sauce Lovers | 2023
When it comes to hot sauce, it’s true what they say: some like it hot. And spicy. And they like it hot and spicy when it comes to everything from breakfast burritos to a bowl of Pho to pizza to chili to potatoes and more. But finding the best hot sauce gift for the hot sauce lover in your life isn’t as easy as counting Scoville units, because not all hot sauces work for all dishes. So we rounded up the best gifts for hot sauce lovers not by mere heat alone, but also based on some of their more subtle qualities.
Thoughtfully Store Hot Sauce Sampler
If you have someone who is just getting into hot sauce on your gift shopping list, this curated collection of 30 different hot sauces will make a great gift. Some will be huge hits, others likely unliked, but they will get to try out all sorts of sauces and learn a lot about his or her palate in the process.
Heartbeat Hot Sauce Hot Sauce Mixed Pack
Is your friend, co-workers, SO, uncle, or whoever you’re shopping for already a confirmed hot sauce aficionado? Then they will appreciate the complex, nuanced, and, yes, spicy sauces made by gourmet hot sauce brand Heartbeats. The company blends traditional hot sauce ingredients (peppers, e.g.) with unexpected twists, like blueberries.
Lola’s Fine Hot Sauce Limited Batch
This is one of those hot sauces that is not playing around with words when it calls itself “very hot.” No, this is a crazy strong sauce, and one that only seasoned spice veterans should try out, but that true spice lovers will, well, love, and thus it makes a great gift.
Huy Fong Sriracha Sauce
This is the hot sauce you’ll find on the table at countless thousands of Asian restaurants across the globe, so it’s the one that belongs in the pantry (or fridge, once opened) at your hot sauce-loving buddy’s house. Stock that buddy up with two large bottles of this classic sriracha sauce so they can lay it on thick as indeed they should.
Hot Ones Los Calientes Barbacoa Hot Sauce
If you’ve spent much time on YouTube lately, you probably know the folks from First We Feast and their Hot Ones series. Hot Ones has spun off into myriad enterprises, including hot sauce production, and this richly-flavored but not overly spicy hot sauce is a triumph from that enterprise. Its fruit-forward flavors (think notes of citrus and apricot) make it perfect on many types of meats.
Seed Ranch Organic Gourmet Variety Hot Sauce Pack
Yes, these are pricier hot sauces, but they are so worth the cost and will make a great hot sauce gift for the true sauce fan. Why? Because of ingredients like dates and cumin along with the ghost peppers in the Smoky Ghost Hot Sauce. And because of serrano pepper, lemongrass, basil, and cilantro in the Hot Thai Green Hot Sauce. And so on, but you get it.
Slap Ya Mama Louisiana Style Hot Sauce Variety Pack
So tasty you may well slap ya mama but still so affordable you can make these hot sauces variety packs stocking stuffers or gifts you buy in bulk for everyone at the office or on the softball team, these are spicy but approachable hot sauces suitable for all sorts of dishes, from omelets to tacos to soups and more.
Fuego Spice Co. Zana Organic Hot Sauce
This is a hot sauce with a heat level rated at mild/medium, making it a great choice for the newcomer to spice or for people who like a bit of heat but don’t want to blow out their taste buds. Made with onions, carrots, and garlic along with the peppers, it’s more about fullness of flavor than the burn.
Bachan’s Hot and Spicy Japanese Barbecue Sauce
To be clear, this is more of a spicy BBQ sauce than a traditional hot sauce, but its heat level is noticeable indeed. The sauce’s flavor is rich on soy and sweetness — think teriyaki sauce, essentially — and with that bit of burn, it’s sublime on roasted meats, in soups, added to fried rice, and in myriad other dishes.
TRUFF Original Black Truffle Hot Sauce
A gourmet-level hot sauce if ever there was one, TRUFF even comes in a fancy-looking bottle. And in that bottle you’ll find a hot sauce featuring, among other ingredients, red chili peppers and black truffles, considered by many to be one of the finest foodstuffs to be found.
Cholula Hot Sauce Variety Pack
Cholula is one of the finest brands of Mexican hot sauce, so giving this mixed pack of a half-dozen Cholula hot sauces makes one of the finest gifts you can give. It features their classic Original hot sauce along with exciting flavors like Chili Lime, Sweet Habanero, and Green Pepper.
Hillside Harvest Pineapple Fresno Hot Sauce
Sweet, spicy, and tangy all at once, this rich and complex hot sauce will be appreciated by all hot sauce veterans and may be an eye-opener for the newcomer to hot sauce, proving these sauces are about so much more than heat alone. It’s a “chef’s kiss” type of sauce that will make many dishes pop with full flavor.
