A homemade Caribbean table pepper sauce: fifteen Scotch bonnets processed with garlic, culantro, cider vinegar, lime, whole grain mustard and ginger until almost smooth.
Untested: not yet made in this kitchen. It is here for the Peppers and Hot Sauce pages and is adapted from the source named in the Notes.
Ingredients
- 15 Scotch bonnet chiles, halved lengthwise, seeds intact
- 3 seasoning peppers, or Anaheim or Cubanelle peppers, halved lengthwise and seeded (optional)
- 1 head of garlic, cloves smashed and peeled
- 6 culantro leaves, or ½ cup fresh cilantro leaves and stems, roughly chopped
- ½ cup apple cider vinegar
- 1 lime, juiced
- 1 heaping tablespoon whole grain mustard
- 1½ teaspoons kosher salt (such as Diamond Crystal), or ¾ teaspoon fine salt
- 1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger
Directions
Key ingredients
- Put everything in a food processor and process for a few minutes, until almost smooth but still a touch chunky, like a smoother chutney. Taste and adjust the salt, lime or vinegar, then jar the sauce and refrigerate it.
Notes
Source Adapted from the “Pepper Sauce” recipe by cookbook author Lesley Enston, in Korsha Wilson’s article for NYT Cooking (2024). It makes about 1 cup. Culantro (Eryngium foetidum) gives the earthy note; the page warns it is “not to be confused with cilantro.” The mustard is the marker of Bajan pepper sauce, though the recipe is credited to the Caribbean generally, not to Barbados.
Storage The source says to store it in the refrigerator “to infinity,” adding that if it smells or looks off it should be thrown out. That is not a usable shelf life. This is a raw, unheated garlic, herb and vinegar sauce with no measured acidity, and no authority reached gives a keeping time for it. Keep it refrigerated always, use a clean spoon, and check its pH with a meter (see /preservation/measuring-ph/) if it is to be kept for long; discard it at any sign of spoilage.
The dish The Peppers and Hot Sauce section (/hot-sauce/) covers the Scotch bonnet and the pepper-sauce bottle on the Caribbean table.
The photo The photograph shows a bottle of Bajan (Barbadian) yellow pepper sauce, not this exact recipe.