Three Mountains Yellow Sriracha Review

Say hello to my yellow friend! When you think sriracha, you likely think red. I know I do. But there are other hues out there, based on the colors of the chilies used to make the hot sauce. Three Mountains Yellow Sriracha is one, using yellow Thai chilies to flip the script on this chili garlic sauce. How tasty is it? Does it meet sriracha standards? And how well-balanced is the heat? We dive into this hot sauce to tell you all about it.

Flavor

Like other srirachas, Three Mountains Yellow Sriracha has a very simple ingredients list: yellow chili peppers, sugar, garlic, vinegar (coconut sugar), and salt.

That maps to typical sriracha recipes. It’s all about the chili peppers, sugar, and garlic. If you like the flavor of popular srirachas, like Huy Fong’s famous rooster sauce, then you’ll definitely love the flavor of Three Mountains Yellow Sriracha as well.

The yellow chilies here have a complex spicy, naturally sweet flavor that hits you right at the top. Then the sugar double-downs on that sweetness mid-bite and the garlic adds a nice sweet-pungent bite here too.

This isn’t a vinegar-forward sauce (no srirachas are). The tanginess (coming from vinegar made from coconut sugar), is slight, even slighter than in other sriracha hot sauce option. Though it provides a little depth to the flavor. It hits towards the top of the flavor profile and gives way to the sweetness of sugar and garlic pretty quickly.

Overall, the flavor profile is similar to red srirachas, peppery, sweet, and garlicky. But Three Mountains Yellow Sriracha seems to amp everything up just a bit more. The sweetness is bolder, at times even tasting nearly citrusy. The garlic pungency enhances that sweetness and gives it some bite. It reminds me of one of those beautiful, sun-drenched fall afternoons where all the autumn colors are turned up a notch. They are the same colors, just more vibrant. It’s good stuff.

The sodium rings in at 540 mg per 2 tablespoons, and that aligns pretty well vs. Huy Fong’s Sriracha (100 mg per teaspoon.) Neither is low sodium, and you could find yourself using quite a bit (like that serving amount shows.) So, if you’re watching your sodium, you may want to look elsewhere for your hot sauce fix.

Heat Balance

Three Mountains Yellow Sriracha is made from yellow Thai burapa chilies. Thai chilies range from 50,000 to 100,000 Scoville heat units, which puts them anywhere from upper-medium heat to extra-hot (ranging up to a milder habanero pepper in heat.)

Three Mountains doesn’t list its Yellow Sriracha Scoville heat rating, but it’s certainly diluted well below those fresh pepper Scoville scores. I’d call it a lower-medium heat, but with some sneakiness. To me, it’s definitely hotter than Huy Fong’s Sriracha Chili Sauce which sits at 1,000 to 2,500 Scoville heat units.

Three Mountains Yellow Sriracha starts maybe a little hotter than that level, but it builds up the more you eat. The heat, though, lingers for only a minute or two, then settles down. It never reaches an uncomfortable level of spiciness, and the heat never outshines the sweet flavor that really makes this hot sauce.

Usability

The moderate kick and sweetness of Three Mountains Yellow Sriracha Sauce give it a lot of use cases. It tastes great with ramen, grilled (or fried) chicken, and tofu. I tried it as a salad dressing, and it was delicious with greens. I even tried it as a mustard replacement on a hot dog, and that was pretty winning as well.

Really, anywhere you’d use a red sriracha, you could use the yellow. Just keep in mind the amplified sweetness. It’s still really versatile, it’s just part of what makes Three Mountains Yellow Sriracha different.

The spout and bottle are exactly like Huy Fong’s classic Sriracha Sauce bottle. It’s a plastic squeeze bottle, with a very tiny spout opening and an easy open and close topper. Their bottle design makes it very easy to put this all over your plate in large amounts, or you can get extremely precise. It’s my favorite kind of hot sauce bottle!

Collectibility

Three Mountains is a small chili farm in Sriracha, Thailand, where they produce this authentic sriracha. This sauce can be hard to find for exactly that reason.

The label design won’t wow you, but it has an authenticity similar to Hoy Fong’s Sriracha bottle — just of course a different cast of characters. No rooster here, instead three mountain peaks outlined in blue. That blue pops with the beautiful yellow color of the hot sauce itself. It just looks appetizing.

The Score

Three Mountains Yellow Sriracha amps up sriracha’s sweet and garlicky flavor — providing a sweetness that at times borders on citrusy and a heat that punches a little higher than you may expect.