Reid Main

I am a fiend for hot sauces and this year I finally took the plunge and started making my own. I am a massive fan of the YouTube series Hot Ones and followed the recipe that Queen Majesty a.k.a. Erica Diehl laid out in this video.

I highly recommend following the recipe almost to the letter because at this point in time you probably have no idea how the ingredients actually contribute to the flavour of the sauce (I know I didn't).

Necessary Utensils

• A blender obviously. You will need one that holds at least 60 ounces because we will get pretty close to that with our recipe.
• A cutting board and knife. I recommend getting an assortment of these so you can can cut up multiple things at once.
• A measuring cup. Ideally it would hold 16 to 24 ounces (2-3 cups) because you will be using more than 1 cup of multiple ingredients.
• Measuring spoons. You only need one that can measure a tablespoon for this recipe but it never hurts to have a set.
• A frying pan or stovetop grill. You're going to be grilling pineapple so a barbeque probably won't cut it.
• Something to bottle your sauce in. I recommend 5 ounce bottles because they are small enough that most friends would be comfortable taking them.
• A funnel to pour the sauce into your bottles. Thank me later for this pro-tip.

Ingredients

• 4-5 jalapeño peppers. You're aiming to have about 1 cup of them when they are chopped.
• A single pineapple you will slice up or you can buy 2 cups of precut pineapple. Fresh is always best especially with hot sauces.
• Sweet onions. You need 1 cup of them diced so if you can buy a large individual one that should be fine but I could only find them in bags.
• 1 bulb of garlic (assuming it has at least 7 cloves).
• Basic salt but I use kosher salt.
• Ground black pepper. I buy it preground but you can grind the peppercorns yourself if you want them to be super fresh.
• Lemon juice. I just bought a bottle of lemon juice but you can buy full lemons and squeeze them yourself if you want.
• Any type of olive oil.
• Bragg's apple cider vinegar

If you watched the video you will see I varied one key ingredient. I chose to use Bragg's apple cider vinegar over white vinegar because not only did I have a bottle of Bragg's on hand but I absolutely love the taste of that vinegar and figured it could only help the sauce (and I was right).

Preparation

1. Cut up your pineapple into one inch squares totaling 2 cups. You are going to grill the pineapple on all sides so you want to make them fairly small so they grill faster and are easier to grill thoroughly.
2. Grill the pineapple slices at medium-high heat. You do this to help bring out the sweetness and to add a little bit of caramelization. Remember to grill your pineapple slices on all sides. You can move onto the other preparation steps while you are grilling because it will take some time.
3. Dice 1 cup of sweet onions. You don't have to dice them very throughly. You just want to cut them up enough so the pieces aren't going to leave a lot of empty space when you pour them into the blender. The blender is the great equalizer and is going to chew up everything but the smaller the pieces are and the less space there is between them the easier they will mix.
4. Chop up 1 cup of jalapeños. Like the sweet onions you don't have to be that thorough. Cutting them into quarters should be enough. Leave the seeds in for an extra kick of heat!
5. If you decided to make your own lemon juice by squeezing some lemons do that now but the store bought stuff is totally fine.
6. Peel 7 cloves of garlic out of the bulb. Put them in a bowl or cup for easy access when you are about to blend.

"Cooking"

When blending sauces you usually want to start with the liquids and then the spices to ensure they mix well. You can then add all of the solids on top.

1. Add 2 cups of Bragg's apple cider vinegar to the blender.
2. Add 2 tablespoons of lemon juice.
3. Add 2 tablespoons of olive oil.
4. Add 1 tablespoon of salt.
5. Add 1 tablespoon of ground black pepper.
6. Add 2 cups of grilled pineapple.
7. Add 1 cup of sweet onions.
8. Add 1 cup of jalapeños.
9. Add 7 cloves of garlic.
10. Turn the blender on and let it go to town. You can try to leave the sauce a bit thicker if you'd like but I found that whenever you think you've blended enough you actually should go 30-60 seconds longer because the sauce is probably thicker than you want.

Chow Down!

And that is it. Congratulations, you have made a delicious batch of grilled pineapple jalapeño sauce. I am sure you and whoever you choose to share it with will absolutely love it. This sauce can be used for almost any occasion but I would particularly recommend using it to dress some chicken wings.