The joy of having food that has high nutritional benefits and versatility in its usage can never be matched. Hot sauce is a good example of such food. It is a type of spice or salsa made from chili pepper and a mixture of other ingredients.
Hot sauce can be used as a supplement for your delicacy during the cooking process and can be added to your dishes to give them a ravishing taste and experience.
Purchasing hot sauce in large quantities can be so tiring and money-wasting if there’s no method of preserving it to retain its savor and taste. So how can you preserve hot sauce?
Can you freeze hot sauce? Yes, you can freeze uncooked hot sauce. You can freeze the uncooked hot sauce for about 2 months.
It would be a waste of time freezing homemade sauce because freezing it doesn’t extend the shelf life by much.
Hot sauce is a kitchen staple in many households because of the medicinal and health benefits. It helps in keeping high blood pressure under control, burning body fat, releasing endorphin which eases pain.
What Kind of Hot Sauce Freezes Best?
Hot sauce should be enjoyed optimally with your snacks, salad, hot chocolate, and soup without any change to the original taste and texture. So, you should take into account how well your hot sauce handles the harsh cold air in the freezer.
To keep your hot sauce fresh and palatable to taste after freezing, you need to know what kind of hot sauce freezes best.
Uncooked hot sauce has a good shelf life because of the ingredients it has been made with, like vinegar and chile pepper which prevents the growth of bacteria that can cause spoilage, food poisoning, and foodborne ailments. This makes it perfect for your freezer.
How to Freeze The Hot Sauce
Freezing your hot sauce is very stress-free and simple but it requires some level of meticulous attention to prevent it from going bad.
To freeze your hot sauce, you would need a Ziploc bag, cookie sheet, and moderate freezer temperature to get the best freezing experience.
However, you need to take note that hot sauce is semi-liquid and will expand when it freezes. So they can damage your storage containers if you don’t leave space for them to expand.
Step 1: Portion Your Hot Sauce
It is always advisable to freeze the hot sauce in their store-bought packages, but if you doubt the integrity of these packages you can use Ziploc freezer bags instead.
Portion your hot sauce into serving sizes so that you would not have to thaw the entire bag just to use a little bit of the sauce.
Step 2: Storage
Freezing your hot sauce in a mason glass jar or Can would be a recipe for disaster. The moisture content in hot sauce is very high and the sauce would expand upon freezing. This increases the possibility of glass shattering or your Can rupturing.
To avoid wastage and time investment spent on cleaning, store your hot sauce in a Ziploc bag.
Step 3: Freezing Your Hot Sauce
To freeze hot sauce effectively, double the Ziploc bag for extra protection and freeze at a moderate freezer temperature of -20°F.
Freezing to this degree keeps the hot sauce preserved without spoiling and making the process of thawing for direct consumption and cooking easy.
How to Defrost Frozen Hot Sauce
The process of defrosting frozen hot sauce can be referred to as child’s play because it is stress-free and doesn’t require any special equipment. There are several ways you can go about it.
Get the frozen hot sauce out of the freezer and allow it to thaw at room temperature for 10 to 20 minutes depending on the consistency you desire from the hot sauce. The consistency is dependent on the use, either you wish to use it as a condiment for your snacks or used in a recipe or in cooking your dishes.
Thawing at room temperature would not be the best option if you are in a hurry to make use of your hot sauce. You can thaw it faster in your microwave. Remove your hot sauce in its frozen state from the Ziploc bag and place it in a microwave-safe container, then heat it for 10 to 20 seconds.
You can either allow it to cool for some minutes or use it immediately. You should not leave your thawed hot sauce out for a long period, leaving it can change the taste and make it unsuitable for consumption.
How to Recognize Spoiled Hot Sauce
When the quality of hot sauce starts deteriorating, it would be discolored and would separate. Though, this might not necessarily mean it is spoiled. Spoiled hot sauce is characterized by the development of mold, a sour taste, and an unpleasant smell.
You should always clean the build-ups and remnants on the container after taking portions from the hot sauce to prevent the growth of bacteria.
To get the best nutrition and medicinal benefit from hot sauce, use it while it is still in its best condition and make sure to discard inedible ones.