What goes best with our sauces and fun facts?

Why Pairing Hot Sauce with Food Matters

Pairing hot sauce with food can elevate your dining experience by adding layers of flavor and enhancing the overall taste of your dishes. Hot sauce can complement and balance the flavors in a meal, bringing out the best in both the food and the sauce. The heat from the hot sauce can also create a pleasant sensation and stimulate your taste buds, making each bite more enjoyable. Additionally, hot sauce pairings can be a fun and creative way to experiment with different flavors and cuisines. Whether you’re adding a spicy kick to your tacos, giving a fiery twist to your stir-fry, or enhancing the flavor of your grilled meats, hot sauce can bring an exciting element to your meals. 

 

Pizza

Whether you’re a pizza purist who loves the Italian staple in its natural fresh-out-of-the-oven form, or you’re a hot sauce fiend, there’s no denying the winning combination. Before you go and douse your loaded pie with any hot sauce, take a breather. The cheese doesn’t really play a role in this decision because it’s too mild and dairy generally tends to mellow out the spiciness anyway. You could go with a mild sauce, which you can also put on mac and cheese, french fries and eggs. 

 

Fish Tacos

There are many definitions of the perfect fish taco. At its very core, a fish taco should be light and crunchy with a lightly fried white flaky fish, a contrasting creamy and crunchy slaw and some kind of spicy element, like Route 77 Hot Sauce.

 

Fried Chicken and Wings

There are so many ways you can go with wings and fried chicken. The ultimate hot sauce pairing is Franks Red Hot, with its unrivaled blend of aged cayenne peppers. After all, Franks Red Hot was the sauce used as the secret ingredient for the very first buffalo wings, invented in Buffalo, New York. So what’s the difference between hot sauce and Buffalo sauce? It’s butter. You can also make your own Buffalo sauce at home by mixing Frank’s or any Route 77 Sauce that fits the mood with butter, garlic and salt. Mix some into a bag of popcorn for a fiery movie snack. The saying holds true: I put that shit on everything.

 

Avocado Toast and Veggies

Veggies are pretty essential, but sometimes you might want to mask the healthy taste with some spice. Route 77 Tomatillo Jalapeno is perfect for avocado toast since it’s fairly mild and it won’t overpower the avocado. Add a few dashes of hot sauce and a sprinkle of red pepper flakes and you’ll be good to go. When it comes to roasting other kinds of veggies like brussels sprouts or broccoli, use any Route 77 Hot Sauce for the job.

 

Bloody Mary

Who doesn’t love a good Bloody Mary for brunch? Nothing will get you out of a funk like a combo of vodka, tomato juice, Worcestershire, lemon juice, horseradish and hot sauce. Blood Mary’s are getting elaborate these days with entire meals piled on top like bacon, burgers and grilled cheese, but at the end of the day a hot sauce can make or break the beloved cocktail. Route 77 Red Habanero might be the best for the job with its for its added spice and flavor.

 

Surprising Matches 

In addition to classic pairings, hot sauce can also be paired with a variety of unexpected foods. For example, drizzling hot sauce over watermelon can create a unique sweet and spicy flavor combination that is sure to tantalize your taste buds. Hot sauce can also add a delicious kick to macaroni and cheese, grilled cheese sandwiches, and even chocolate desserts and ice cream.

 

Fun Facts

 

Do you refrigerate Habanero sauce?

The USDA's Food Keeper app says that while hot sauce will maintain peak freshness for up to six months when stored at room temperature, it will last longer if stored in the fridge. Brigman echoes these guidelines, saying that refrigerated hot sauce typically lasts one to two years once opened.

 

Scoville Scale

The scale ranges from 0 to 16 million Scoville Heat Units (SHU), with 0 being no heat and 16 million being the maximum heat level. The Scoville scale is determined by measuring the amount of capsaicin in a pepper, which is the compound responsible for the heat. The higher the capsaicin concentration, the higher the Scoville rating. Translation...know what you're eating!