Food & Drink

The 5 Best Hot Sauces For Summer Grilling

mj-618_348_5-ideal-hot-sauces-for-summer-grilling

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by Kenny Herzog

Let’s face it: Marinating is the worst. All that preparation and waiting, not to mention submerging and then extricating fleshy foodstuffs from casserole dishes teeming with nebulous citrus fruit and molasses. It all makes grilling outdoors feel a little too much like actual cooking. This begs the question: Why not seize on the trend of big-market and smaller-batch hot sauces suddenly substituting for condiments and use them to bring out the most in your smoky selections while barbecuing. In other words, stop giving your raw meat and poultry (and innocent vegetables for that matter) an arbitrary flavor bath (or slathering them in glorified molasses), and bring out their latent propane potential with a few splashes or brushes of precisely refined vinegar, pepper, and zest.

With that in mind, here are five hot sauces we recommend for when you’re BBQing chicken, steak, burgers, veggies, and fish from now through Labor Day. And unlike those aforementioned, mundane marinades, there’s virtually no way to integrate them imprudently, so long as the spice is right.

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1 / 5

Steak: Big Daddy's Amplified Heat Hot Sauce

What’s on the Grill: Steak

What Sauce We Recommend: Big Daddy’s Amplified Heat Hot Sauce

Key Attributes: Texas-based purveyors Big Daddy’s are very into music. See: their terrific habanero sauce inspired by California neo-doom-metal outfit High on Fire. Also, their aptly quirkier concoction conjured with alt-psych mainstays Flaming Lips in mind, which features pineapple and orange juice. But for our several dollars, particularly when searing a fine filet or flank, we’ll go with their opaque-green Amplified Heat variety, so named for Austin’s beloved blues crushers. The charred jalapenos, brown sugar and touch of St. Arnold’s Germanic-influenced Lawnmower ale mingle and give off a mild temperature hotness that won’t take away from a medium-rare Mignon (with just enough salt to help further induce the meat’s inherent juices). But the reason it’s so addictive, and so perfect for any cut of steak on your Weber, is the eager-to-assimilate smoke that uncannily evokes the gamier flavor of a solid skirt or would go just as well drizzled atop or spooned on the side of a bloody tenderloin slice.

Most Appropriate Usage: In lieu of A-1 on the plate or splashed only somewhat judiciously as the meat starts browning on the grill.

Where You Can Buy It: Through the above-linked iBurn store, or if you’re in Texas, everywhere from Whole Foods to the occasional area car wash.

2 / 5

For Fish: Pickapeppa Hot Mango Sauce

What’s on the Grill: Fish

What Sauce We Recommend: Pickapeppa Hot Mango Sauce

Key Attributes: Apparently, near-century-old Jamaican sauce maker Pickapeppa is a common go-to with cream cheese. So much for lox and a schmear. Fear not, however: Their line is quite versatile, and just about perfect for summertime seafood cookouts. You can acquire the milder spicy and ginger mango spins on our selection, but for optimum flavor, we say go hot. And pour yourself a Bloody Mary while you’re at it. But really, the unlikely heroes of Pickapeppa Hot Mango are the raisins, distinguishing its overall tang from a typical fruity salsa you might be tempted to reach for with that sea bass. It does have a kick, but that’s when the mango and touch of ginger start going to work and evening out the heat, and at the end, it’s all refreshing and not too sticky-sweet.

Most Appropriate Usage: Because you’d have to classify this as a medium-to-hot sauce, lightly brush when your meaty white fish first hits the grill rather than shower it on when the thing starts to flake.

Where You Can Buy It: Through Pickapeppa, naturally, but also Amazon (yay, e-commerce!) and even the occasional Wal-Mart or grocery chain like Lucky Supermarkets.

3 / 5

For Hamburgers: Blair's Chipotle Slam

What’s on the Grill: Hamburgers

What Sauce We Recommend: Blair’s Chipotle Slam

Key Attributes: This rebel New Jersey sauce maker has already gained a rep for marrying serious hot with accessible flavor (e.g. their terrific collaborative series with Black Label Society frontman Zakk Wylde), but they’ve outdone themselves with the almost-elegant Heat Collection of exotic recipes. Fancy it up however you want, but the Chipotle Slam is, plainly and simply, delicious. It’s heat, derived from habaneros, chipotle, and red jalapenos, is smooth and garlicky, rather than some bland, four-alarm burn. And lime juice, often pressed into hot sauces as a lazy concession, lingers and meets halfway with cayenne, making you wish your ground chuck was perked up with the stuff and that a Corona wasn’t far from reach.

Most Appropriate Usage: Don’t be afraid to brush this puppy generously around the patty while it’s still raw and daub on an extra coat after you give it a flip. We also wouldn’t not recommend whipping it up with a favorite mustard or BBQ sauce and upping your condiment game.

Where You Can Buy It: Via Blair’s, as well as a myriad of other online depots, but also be advised that their goods are ubiquitous in better craft-beer and snack shops nationwide.

4 / 5

For Chicken: Richard's Vermont Made Hot Sauce

What’s on the Grill: Chicken

What Sauce We Recommend: Richard’s Vermont Made Hot Sauce

Key Attributes: The ultimate proof that there’s no place for the corn syrup-and-preservatives abominations passing for most BBQ sauces, this has everything you love about the typical brown backyard-cookout accouterment – the pungency of vinegar and garlic going to war with sugary sweetness – but raises the stakes with aged cayenne (and admittedly still holds onto a smidge of that corn syrup). A touch of Worcestershire may deem this more befitting of red meat to some, but your poultry will thank you for thinking outside the cow, and now everything coming off your grill is going to taste and smell that much more seamless.

Most Appropriate Usage: A la the Chipotle Slam with that burger, feel free to brush benevolently when uncooked and then layer a little more on a minute or two before that breast is begging to be served. It can certainly stand on its own as a dipper as well, though that may be overkill if it’s already infused.

Where You Can Buy It: It ain’t cheap, but it’s all-purpose utility makes it worth a visit over to Richard’s Web store.

5 / 5

For Veggie Skewers: Wild Coyote Fire Roasted Garlic

What’s on the Grill: Veggie Skewers

What Sauce We Recommend: Wild Coyote Fire Roasted Garlic

Key Attributes: You obviously don’t want anything too thick here, nor a sauce that might overwhelm (i.e. take more risks with the carnivorous stuff). But it never hurts to find something on the shelf that’ll add some life to lightly charred bits of onion and bell peppers without undermining their tasty simplicity. Enter Wild Coyote’s optimal garlic offering, whose titular ingredient is front and center, but tamed by cilantro (don’t worry, not too much cilantro) and more floral spices. Once it’s sidled up to your Richard’s basted chicken or Amplified Heat-improved sirloin, it won’t be looking to steal the show (and may ensure you’ll be begging for a Breath Saver when all’s said and done), but will proudly play its part in an adventurously flavorful Fourth of July.

Most Appropriate Usage: A few splashes from skewer’s top to bottom about half a minute before done grilling.

Where You Can Buy It: Your best bet is direct, but for those in the Northeast, these guys are regulars at regional farmer’s markets and street fairs.

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