Reid Main

When I first started getting into hot sauces I noticed the ones that incorporated mangos were always able to hit that sweet spot between taste and heat. The natural evolution of the grilled pineapple jalapeño hot sauce that I made seemed to be replace pineapples with mangos and jalapeños with habaneros. The hope is that the mangoes will keep (or even improve) on the sweetness of sauce while the habaneros will really give it that extra kick I am looking for.

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 stove-top grill. You're going to be grilling mangos 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 habanero peppers. You're aiming for approximately 1 cup of chopped habaneros. Any more than that and you are going to have a super spicy sauce.
• Two ripe mangos. If you buy precut mangos you're looking for approximately 2 cups worth.
• One orange bell pepper. We are adding this to help sweeten the sauce. Feel free to replace it with another type of pepper that better suits the taste you are looking for.
• 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.
• 7 cloves of garlic so a single bulb should do you just fine.
• Kosher salt but you can use regular salt.
• Ground black pepper. I buy it pre-ground 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. I typically go with extra virgin olive oil.
• Bragg's apple cider vinegar. I would recommend buying the largest bottle you can find because we're going to need 2 cups of it and this is going to be the base of a lot of hot sauces.

Preparation

1. Cut up your mangos into one inch cubes totaling 2 cups. Mangos are notoriously tough to cut so don't hesitate to check out a tutorial on YouTube.
2. Grill the mango cubes 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 mango cubes on all sides. You can move onto the other preparation steps while you are grilling because it will take some time.
3. Cut up your orange bell pepper into quarters or eights. You just want to cut it up enough so the pieces aren't going to leave a lot of empty space when you put 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. Dice 1 cup of sweet onions. Like the orange bell pepper don't worry about being too thorough. 1 inch pieces will be fine.
5. Chop up 1 cup of habaneros. Cutting them into quarters should be enough. Leave the seeds in for an extra kick of heat!
6. If you decided to make your own lemon juice by squeezing some lemons do that now but the store bought stuff is totally fine.
7. 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 mango.
7. Add 1 diced orange bell pepper.
8. Add 1 cup of sweet onions.
9. Add 1 cup of habaneros.
10. Add 7 cloves of garlic.
11. Turn the blender on and let it go to town. It is essentially impossible to "overmix" a hot sauce so I would say that whenever you feel the sauce is done actually wait 30-60 seconds longer because the sauce is probably thicker than you want.

Chow Down!

I went a little overboard when I actually made this recipe and put in 7 habaneros instead of 4-5. While I find this a to be a perfect amount of heat not everyone agreed with me. So while I did seem to hit that perfect mixture of mangoes and habaneros for myself, I recommend you err on the side of caution the first time you make this recipe.

All that being said this sauce was absolutely amazing for chicken wings.