Which dried chilies should I use for hot sauce with lots of flavor and “medium hot” heat?

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Because “medium hot” is largely a factor of personal taste (people perceive spice differently based on their dietary habits and taste buds) and the final heat of a hot sauce will vary with a recipe, it’s hard for us to recommend chilies that will give you exactly the result you’re looking for.

You might consider experimenting with a blend of a small number of medium dried chilies or hot dried chilies for heat and a larger amount of mild chilies (which tend to be fruitier) for flavor.  Tweak the balance in your recipe until you get the result you like.

If you want your sauce to have smoky notes, use some smoked chilies (chipotles or smoked serranos) in the blend.

For an example, see our ghost chile hot sauce recipe, where we used just a few uber-hot ghost chilies with a bunch of mild aji panca chilies.

Question Submitted by Carl E.

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