El Yucateco Ingredients

El Yucateco Ingredients: What Makes This Hot Sauce Tick?

The El Yucateco company was founded in 1968 in Yucatan, Mexico by Priamo J. Gamboa. The term “Yucateco” refers to people from the Yucatan. Gamboa’s company started as a small family-owned business that specialized in habanero-based hot sauces. El Yucateco sauces have gone on to become favorites among chili pepper fans as versatile condiments that can be used on a wide variety of foods. So what’s behind this delicious hot sauce? There are many options, but let’s take a closer look at the ingredients of one of its most popular varieties – El Yucateco Chili Habanero Hot Sauce (red).

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Spicy Plum Sauce

Spicy Plum Sauce

A boldly fruity fiery dipping sauce…

Plum sauce is a delicious side to Chinese food, particularly anything that’s fried. Sweet, sour, and – in our case – fiery, this bold condiment really provides a real punch to fried egg rolls in particular.

Beyond Chinese, try this spicy plum sauce as a chicken tender dipper. The heat comes comes simply from common cayenne pepper powder, so it’s easy to control and adjust. This is an excellent alternative to your typical barbecue dipping sauce.

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ghost pepper nutrition

Ghost Pepper Nutrition: How Healthy Are They?

Also known as bhut jolokia, ghost peppers rose to fame in the early 2000s and still carry a significant amount of notoriety. Ghost peppers are a hybrid of two chili pepper cultivars that were brought from the Americas. This Capsicum chinense cultivar originated in the Indian state of Assam and is world famous for its extreme pungency and heat, but is it good for you? Do you get any health benefits from eating ghost peppers? The answer is, yes; ghost peppers do have beneficial characteristics to go along with that wicked heat.

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7 Pot Primo

7 Pot Primo Guide: Heat, Flavor, Uses

What are 7 Pot Primo peppers? What happens when two super-hots meet? Another hottie is born. The 7 Pot Primo is the fiery cross between the wickedly hot Naga Morich and the equally scorching 7 Pot pepper. This is a stable hybrid – having reached …

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Spicy Sour Cream

Spicy Sour Cream

A simple sour cream hack…

Sour cream and Mexican food often goes hand in hand. Sometimes there’s plenty of spice already in that Mexican meal, and other times…well you need a little something extra to amp things up a bit. It’s very simple to turn that sour cream you’re scooping right from the container into a topping that’s a little more fun. Our spicy sour cream recipe is as easy as it gets: just a little chipotle powder and salt and you have a delicious topper for those mild tacos or enchiladas.

We love using chipotle pepper because it’s not only spicy, it also has a delicious smokiness to it. But if smoky isn’t your thing, you can adjust the recipe using various levels of paprika and cayenne pepper powder. They can still bring some heat without that smoky undertone.

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Pepperoncini Nutrition

Pepperoncini Nutrition: How Healthy Are They?

Pepperoncini only slightly tip the needle of the pepper scale – only  100 to 500 Scoville heat units – making them a popular (and family-friendly) option to add a hint of spice. They are typically pickled and used in salads, sandwiches, and condiments like bomba calabrese. In addition to being flavorful, pepperoncini peppers have several properties that make them good for you. Let’s break down pepperoncini nutrition to see what makes this hot pepper tick.

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Komodo Dragon Pepper

Komodo Dragon Pepper: Fire Bringer

Slow-burn super-hot…

Scoville heat units (SHU): 1,400,000 – 2,200,000
Jalapeño reference point: 175 to 880 times hotter
Origin: United Kingdom
Seeds: Komodo Dragon seeds on Amazon

Blistering hot is the only way to describe the Komodo Dragon pepper. With a spiciness that rivals (but doesn’t quite beat) the Carolina Reaper, this super-hot chili is no doubt for extreme eaters only. Like the ghost pepper, it has a “sneaky heat”, a slow burn that allows a lovely fruity flavor to set before knocking your socks off. And unlike most other super-hots, the Komodo Dragon pepper has a place on the supermarket aisle – at least in the United Kingdom where it’s carried in Tesco supermarkets throughout the country.

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Sambar Powder

Homemade Sambar Powder

An exotic Indian seasoning…

There are a few lightly fiery seasonings that are musts for authentic Indian cuisine, and sambar powder is among one of the most important. It’s used to make sambar, a delicious lentil-based soup that’s often a precursor (or a side) to the main Indian meal. Sambar powder, too, can be a substitute to rasam powder for making rasam – a thin soup that’s typically served atop rice.

In both cases, it’s the popular Indian kashmiri chili that provides a light simmer of heat. These are mild peppers (1,000 to 2,000 Scoville heat units), but enough are called for in the recipe that you’ll feel the spiciness. 

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