How to choose a hot sauce?

There are many hot sauces to choose from so how do you know which one you will like. Some sauces are more of a novelty than anything else they are designed for maxium heat or scoville units. Scoville units can tell you how hot a sauce is going to be. 100 to 350,000 scoville units is about where you should be looking.

Some hot sauces have their own rankings, 1-5 or similar. Shop Gourmet uses a ranking of 1-10, 10 being the hottest. This is helpful if you need to know quickly how it ranks against other sauces.

Even though a sauce may be hot that doesn't really translate into a great tasting meal. There is a balance of good taste and heat that hot sauce manufacturers must try to meet. Daves Gourmet is an example of a hot sauce manufacturer who has done this well. Daves has a full line of hot sauces that enrich the taste of any food, while not excessively adding to the heat.

You'll never really know which hot sauce you like until you try it, but here is a tip. Most hot sauce companies offer a variety pack that has some of their best selling items all in one. They are smaller but you will save money buying them this way and if you find one you really like then it was worth it.