Bottom Line: Tabasco is one of the oldest bottled sauces and still one of the best. It brings good heat and good flavor and pairs well with a wide variety of foods.
There may be thousands of hot sauces out there (tens of thousands?), many that are quite tasty and that I would highly recommend. But I always find myself going back to the source. The original Tabasco Pepper Sauce is still Number 1 in my book. I bow to king Tabasco! It may not be the hottest. It may not be the best tasting (though it is right up there at the top). It may not always be the first one that I reach for. But from an overall perspective, it is the most versatile of the sauces and the one that I default to if I can’t decide on anything else. (And it is an absolute must with Cajun food!)
The flavor of Tabasco sauce is pretty darn simple. It has a tanginess to it. Maybe a very slight sweetness along with some salt (though not too much). It has good heat, but not overwhelming, coming in between 2,500-5,000 Scoville units and around Medium on my scale which makes it tolerable to the average mortal. And it has a Tabasco taste to it. There’s really no other way to put it. This sauce has a unique taste that certainly has to do with how they ferment the peppers before bottling the sauce. And it’s what makes Tabasco Tabasco.
And it can go on pretty much anything. Meat, poultry, fish, eggs, veggies, soups, chips, pizza, chocolate cake. (Okay, perhaps not that last one, but . . . a mole cake maybe?) If you want to spritz some hot sauce on something you are eating and you can’t quite decide which one to reach for, you usually can’t go wrong with Tabasco. It brings the right amount of brightness, heat, and tang to whatever you add it to, but it does not overpower the food. Just like the precise amount of salt can help bring out the flavor in a particular dish, Tabasco can equally enhance the taste while also bring a nice kick with it.
I know that it seems like an old-school sauce and it is not nearly as daring as all these ghost chili and scorpion chili and reaper chili concoctions trying to crank up the blaze. But there is a reason why Tabasco is pretty much ubiquitous across the U.S., and you almost certainly have a bottle in your kitchen. This sauce is a crowd-pleaser that still satisfies those looking for some good heat. And it counts as one of my main go-to sauces.
There are plenty of Tabasco varieties, but I always find myself going back to the original. The Green Sauce and the Cayenne Garlic sauces are milder variations and better for those who can’t handle the hotter stuff. The Habanero Pepper sauce is for those looking for more heat, and I often find that one contending with the original when I reach for a Tabasco bottle. But if I am doing the desert island game, the original sauce would certainly be high on the list of items I would have with me.
Tabasco Pepper Sauce was first produced by Edmund McIlhenny in Louisiana back in the 1840’s (though there is some debate about who first created the sauce). It is bottled on Avery Island in Louisiana (Mecca for hot sauce lovers), though most of the Tabasco peppers are cultivated in South America these days. It is still a family-owned business and one of the few such companies that have not been bought up by a mega-corp yet (though don’t be surprised if Disney or Google or Amazon take a shot at it).
Fun fact: this is one of the few U.S. companies to receive a royal warrant of appointment that certified it as a supplier to the late Queen Elizabeth II. Apparently, the queen liked a little spice now and again!
Nutrition Info:
Ingredients: Aged red peppers, Avery Island salt, distilled vinegar
Serving Size: 1 Teaspoon
Calories: 0
Fat: 0g
Protein: 0g
Carbs: 0g
Sodium: 35mg