Southern Pepper Sauce Recipe
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This pepper sauce recipe is a Southern family favorite. Perfect for serving with cornbread, greens, or black eyed peas, this Southern Pepper Sauce is one you’ll turn to again and again.
Pepper Sauce is a favorite condiment for serving with any number of dishes in the south. It’s delicious with foods like black-eyed peas, pinto beans, collard greens, or turnip greens. Many even like a bit of it with their BBQ. A jar of this spicy sauce can just about always be found on the supper table, making it a staple item to make each year.
At the end of each summer, Daddy would gather peppers from his garden to make a good number of jars to use, keep in the pantry, and share with friends.
Here’s our family pepper sauce recipe. This recipe is for a one-pint jar.
Southern Pepper Sauce Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 cup distilled white vinegar
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt, or pickling salt
- 1 teaspoon olive oil, optional for extra hot pepper sauce
- about 30 small peppers
Instructions
- Clean jar, lid, and band and rinse well. Keep warm.
- Mix together sugar, salt, vinegar, and optional olive oil in a stainless steel saucepan.
- Cook over medium heat until it begins to boil.
- Fill jar with peppers and pour hot vinegar mixture over the peppers. Leave about 1 inch of headspace from the top of the jar
- Remove air bubbles in the jar by tilting jar slightly to allow bubbles to escape as press peppers against opposite side of the jar.
- Wipe jar rim to clean. Place lid on top of jar and tighten ring.
- Allow jars to seal by setting on countertop to cool with about 1 inch in between each.
- Test seal after about 12 hours by pressing finger to the center of the lid. If sealed, it will not pop back. If not sealed, refrigerate and use.
- Store in dark, cool cabinet or pantry for up to a year.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Enjoy!
Robyn xo
I am a GA girl and been living in W Central GA for over 50 years. I only use white vinegar, no oil, only non-iodized salt (equal to canning salt or sea salt with no additives) and no sugar. I slice up hot banana peppers, chilies and hot cow horn peppers and can in 1/2 pint jars, as our family is smaller now ad we don’t go through it as fast. I let it sit a full 2weeks before using to let the vinegar absorb a bunch of hot pepper magic before using. Peppers can be eaten out of the jar on any kind of peas or greens or even on pizza. I never de-seed my peppers to allow them to make a hotter sauce, which is their mission.
Thanks, Mary. Don’t you love how great this is with your vegetables? I haven’t tried it on pizza but what a great idea!
How do you prevent sauce from eroding the canning lids?
Dianne, I always use new canning lids and have not had this happen.
Can I do this with sliced hot peppers?
You can use sliced hot peppers. Hope you enjoy!
So happy I found
Thank you for an authentic recipe! If the peppers float in the jar, you can poke a little hole in each with a darning needle. It may take longer to get rid of the bubbles, and you might have to use a little more vinegar. Warning – the vinegar will be hotter in the end! It comes in contact with the seeds and membranes of the peppers when the skin is breeched. Apple cider vinegar does work, the color is “off,” but the flavor is just fine. Fish peppers, a striped African heirloom type with variegated, cream-spotted leaves, work Great for this. They’re under-used in the garden, really – so ornamental, lovely for containers and even accents in borders, producing a pretty fruit with heat similar to a jalapeño.
I have a lot of peppers that i don;t want to go to waste so I am interested in how to make pepper Sauce.
Just follow the recipe, Gary. It is really easy to make.
1st time on site
Welcome to Add a Pinch, Glenn. I hope you find many recipes on here you like.
This recipe is perfect! My family loves it! I always helped my mom can foods when I was growing up. I have been married and living 2 hours away from her for the last 42 years, so I wasn’t around to keep all that canning knowledge fresh at hand. Now my mom has alzheimers and she doesn’t even remember me. Thank you so much for being kind enough to share this and helping to keep canning alive!
Have you ever used frozen peppers to make pepper sauce? I have an abundance of peppers and I have already made myself and everyone I know plenty of pepper sauce and jellies. But, I hate to waste my peppers. So, I was wondering about freezing my peppers and making pepper sauce at a later date.
I haven’t tried making this with frozen peppers, Carolyn.
This looks and sounds great, wish I had paid more attention to my Mom.
Has anyone ever had a problem with peppers floating to the top? I used whole Cheyenne peppers with stems cut off and all they wanted to do was escape after pouring the vinegar in. This is my first time trying anything like this. 😁
Cut a slit in the side of the peppers.