Sriracha sauce, as many Americans know it, is a mild hot sauce that comes in a distinctive bottle with a green cap (read our review). The familiar version is an American hot sauce produced by Huy Fong Foods, which started in Los Angeles and now makes it in Irwindale, California. What some people in the US don’t know is that its original incarnation is a Thai sauce. It’s named for the seaside town of Si Racha, and in Thailand it’s a common dipping sauce for seafood and omelets.
The sauce is versatile regardless of which version you are using, and there are numerous applications for it. Below, they’re sorted by what you’re asking the bottle to do, from dips and bigger sauces to cooking, drinks and plain squeezing on top.
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What sriracha brings to a dish
Huy Fong’s label lists chili, sugar, salt and garlic first, then vinegar and a few preservatives and thickeners. The chili is red jalapeño, and our sriracha ingredients breakdown goes through the rest. So you get sweetness and garlic up front, a light tang, and heat behind them.
How hot is it? Mild. Most estimates put it at 1,000 to 2,500 SHU, below Tabasco’s 2,500 to 5,000. Our sriracha heat guide has the full comparison. That gentle heat is why it goes so far: you can use a lot before it hurts, and the garlic and sugar come along with every squeeze.
Shape matters too. The bottle sauce is thick, so it sits on food rather than running off, and it stirs smoothly into anything creamy. But the sugar means it can scorch in a very hot pan or on a grill, so add it late when the heat is high.
Dip into it, or build a dip on it
The classic use for sriracha is as a dipping sauce. If you are a traditionalist, you can use it straight with no additives. It works particularly well with fried foods, so you can use it to enhance everything from fish fingers to chicken nuggets or fried okra. Its gentle heat and familiar flavors allow it to complement a wide range of foods, and those same qualities make it a great mixer as well.
Stir it into mayo
Where to start? With sriracha mayo. Use a tablespoon of sriracha to a quarter cup of mayo, taste, and adjust. It goes on burgers, fries, sushi rolls, fish and fried chicken. Our spicy fish taco sauce is the same idea, loosened with sour cream and lime.
Make a creamy dip or dressing
You can combine it with ranch dressing, mayonnaise or cream cheese since it blends particularly well with creamy ingredients. Our sriracha ranch dressing builds on sour cream and buttermilk, and the sriracha yogurt dip needs only yogurt, a little mayo and lemon. For a dip with more body, try the spicy sriracha carrot dip, which blends roasted carrots and chickpeas.
Cut it with ketchup
You can also use it in ketchup to get a milder, sweeter version. Add horseradish and lemon and you’re most of the way to our sriracha cocktail sauce for shrimp.
Add it to a dipping sauce
A spoonful of sriracha shifts the balance of most dipping sauces without much effort. For dumplings and spring rolls, our sriracha soy sauce is just soy, sriracha and brown sugar. Peanut butter, hot water and a little soy and sesame oil make our sriracha peanut sauce. And the maple sriracha sauce has just two ingredients: a quarter cup of sriracha and two tablespoons of maple syrup.
Make a bigger sauce with it
In these, sriracha is one ingredient among several, and its job is to bring heat and garlic to something sweeter or richer.
Use it in buffalo sauce
Sriracha is excellent as the source of heat for buffalo wings or a meatless equivalent like buffalo cauliflower. The very mild Frank’s Red Hot is the traditional hot sauce used on buffalo wings. It runs about 450 SHU, so swapping in sriracha raises the heat and adds some sweetness. Melt it with the same amount of butter, the way you’d make the classic sauce. Our honey sriracha wings use that ratio, with honey for sweetness.
Turn it into a sweet glaze
Sugar and sriracha are natural partners. Our honey sriracha glaze is mostly honey with two tablespoons of sriracha, and it’s good brushed on salmon, chicken or pork near the end of cooking. Want it on wings? The spicy maple chicken wings use equal parts maple syrup and sriracha.
Stir it into barbecue sauce
Ketchup, brown sugar and vinegar are already the base of most barbecue sauces, and sriracha fits right in. Our sriracha BBQ sauce uses half a cup of it along with soy sauce and rice vinegar. For something smokier, the spicy bourbon BBQ sauce pairs it with molasses and bourbon.
Fold it into a cheese sauce
Cheddar and sriracha work well together. Our sriracha cheese sauce stirs two tablespoons into a cheddar white sauce. Our sriracha mac and cheese goes further with a quarter cup, and the same idea works over vegetables in our jalapeño and sriracha cauliflower cheese.
Beat it into butter
Need something for steak? Blend sriracha into softened butter and you’ve got something to melt over steak, corn on the cob or a baked potato. Our sriracha butter goes all in with equal parts butter and sriracha, plus lime juice.
Cook it into the dish
This time the sauce goes into the pan or the mixing bowl, and you taste it in the finished dish rather than on top.
Add it to a stir-fry sauce
Sriracha sauce is not exactly a traditional ingredient in stir-fry sauces, but it works very well as one. Add it to the other stir-fry sauce ingredients for subtle heat. The mildness of sriracha pairs well with soy sauce, oyster sauce, and similarly flavorful ingredients. It can bring its subtle heat while also helping to give body to a stir fry sauce.
Our sriracha fried rice shows how much it can carry: three tablespoons of sriracha and three of soy sauce season three cups of cold rice.
Warm up noodles and soup
Making soup or noodles? Stir a spoonful into the broth. Then taste before adding more. Our spicy ramen noodles build the broth with two tablespoons, and our sriracha and cauliflower cheese soup uses three, roasted onto the cauliflower before it goes into the pot.
Marinate with it
Sriracha, lime, soy and honey make a marinade that covers sweet, sour, salty and hot at once. That’s the base of our sriracha marinade, which also brings in Dijon and cilantro. Keep an eye on the grill, though, since the honey and the sauce’s own sugar can char.
Mix it into meatballs
Mixed into ground meat, sriracha seasons from the inside. Our sriracha meatballs take a tablespoon along with ginger and garlic, and the honey sriracha meatballs put a quarter cup into a honey and lime sauce.
Spike a tomato sauce
Making pasta tonight? A can of crushed tomatoes and three tablespoons of sriracha is the start of our sriracha spaghetti sauce. The garlic in the bottle does some of the work you’d normally do with a knife.
Roast potatoes in it
Toss potato wedges in sriracha and olive oil before they roast. Our sriracha fries use half a cup for four russets in a 450°F oven. Wedges work the same way.
Dry it into a powder
Yes, sriracha is a hot sauce, but you can turn it into a seasoning blend. Spread it thin on a parchment-lined sheet, dry it in a 200°F oven, then grind it. Sriracha powder is quite versatile, too. You can use it on any of these ideas here. And it’s an excellent option for when that extra liquid of hot sauce is not a good option.
Shake it into a drink
Savory or tart, a cocktail can take a squeeze, and both of these keep it to a teaspoon or two.
In a Bloody Mary
The Bloody Mary cocktail is all about savory flavors and spice. Sriracha fits perfectly into the flavor profile, and you can use it to replace other sources of heat traditionally used in these beverages, like Tabasco. Our sriracha Bloody Mary uses two teaspoons for four ounces of tomato juice, with horseradish and lemon.
In a margarita
Prefer tequila? Lime and tequila take a little heat well. Our sriracha margarita shakes in a teaspoon and uses a dab of sriracha to stick the salt to the rim.
Just squeeze it on top
- Eggs: The creamy richness of eggs is greatly enhanced with the use of sriracha. Use it in place of Tabasco on scrambled or fried eggs if you need a milder heat. It’s thicker, too, so it stays put on the egg. For a party, make our sriracha deviled eggs.
- Pho: Huy Fong’s bottle started out on the tables of Vietnamese restaurants in the US, and it’s still there next to the hoisin. Taste the broth first, and use sriracha in moderation to avoid obliterating the subtle flavors of pho. Plenty of diners squeeze it into a side dish with hoisin for dipping the meat instead.
- Ramen: Not a traditional match, but a little heat and garlic suit most bowls, especially instant ones.
- Burgers and hot dogs: You can use sriracha instead of or along with ketchup to give a little kick to a hamburger, and it does the same on a hot dog.
- Pizza: Add it to a premade pizza, or use it in place of pizza sauce if you make one at home.
- Tacos and burritos: Sriracha is made with red jalapeños, which makes it a great complement to tacos and burritos despite its Southeast Asian heritage.
- Rice and grain bowls: A zigzag over rice, vegetables and a fried egg.
- Avocado toast: A few dots and a pinch of salt.
- Slaw: Whisk it into the dressing. Our sriracha slaw uses three tablespoons with mayo and cider vinegar.
- Popcorn: Toss it with butter, or shake sriracha powder over it so it stays crisp.
Huy Fong, Thai or homemade: which sriracha for which job
Which bottle should you buy? Huy Fong’s is the thick, garlicky one most American recipes assume, ours included, and since it clings to food and blends into mayo and butter, it’s the one for most of the ideas above.
Thai sriracha, such as Sriraja Panich, tends to be tangier and runnier. That makes it a better pick for dipping seafood or an omelet, the way it’s used in Thailand, and less useful as a thick drizzle. Homemade gives you control over the heat and the sugar.
A store-bought bottle doesn’t need the fridge once opened, though it will slowly darken over time. Our post on whether sriracha needs to be refrigerated explains why. And if a dish ends up too hot, here’s how to fix too much sriracha.
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Related Reading
- Cooking With Sriracha: The Dos And Don’ts: Kitchen habits that keep the bottle and the dish in good shape.
- What’s A Good Sriracha Substitute? For when the bottle runs dry mid-recipe.
- Gochujang Vs. Sriracha: How Do They Compare? How the Korean chili paste compares on heat, flavor and use.