I am a firm believer that you haven’t truly experienced a new place until you immerse yourself in its local cuisine. Traveling the world means pushing your boundaries and trying new dishes (even if they may be outside of your comfort zone).
While you would be hard pressed to try sampling every nation’s famous dishes during your vacation, condiments are the great equalizer.
It doesn’t matter if you are walking into a local dive bar or sit-down restaurant; chances are that the condiments you find on the tabletop of either establishment are the same as what you would find in someone’s pantry.
For that reason, I sample hot sauces wherever I travel around the world. Trying hot sauces native to your latest destination will instantly give you a greater appreciation of the local cuisine. Crafted solely to enhance the flavor of widely available foods in their market, famous hot sauces from around the world will naturally be representative of the local culture & cuisine.
To steal a quote from Michael Lewis’ Moneyball: “How can you not be romantic about hot sauce?”
Let’s jump into some of our team’s favorite hot sauces from around the world.
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Marie Sharp’s Hot Sauces
Belize
- Country of origin: Belize
- Best for: pizza and seafood
- How hot is it? Medium to hot
- Where to buy? Click here to check the latest price on Amazon
Marie Sharp’s hot sauce is truly the pride of Belize. Found on Belizean tabletops across the country, we fell in love with this family of sauces on my first bite.
Originally sold under the Melinda’s brand in the 80’s and 90’s, Marie Sharp’s original distributor trademarked the product and changed the product lines without her consultation. Realizing the legal challenges posed with fighting to retain the rights to the Melinda name (her peppers are grown on the Melinda Estate), Marie Sharp began bottling & selling her original recipe under her own brand. You can read more about Marie Sharp’s point of view here.
Our personal favorite is the Belizean Heat bottle. This black label bottle is a step up in heat from their legendary habanero pepper sauce (white label). Marie Sharp’s now offers a wide variety of carrot-based and no-carrot hot sauces to choose from.
Lottie’s Traditional Barbados Hot Sauce
Barbados
- Country of origin: Barbados
- How hot is it? Hot
- Best for: burgers and chicken wings
- Where to buy? Click here to check the latest price on Amazon
Barbados has one of the best flags in the world, hands down. I’m not sure if there is any correlation here, but Lottie’s Traditional Barbados Hot Sauce is damn good, too.
This mustard-based Bajan hot sauce is bright yellow and gets its heat from habanero peppers. Don’t be fooled if the heat doesn’t knock your socks off at first; the heat builds steadily the longer you eat it. Try this bad boy on burgers, chicken, or anything really.
El Yucateco Hot Sauce
Mexico
- Country of origin: Mexico
- Best for: tacos & burritos
- How hot is it? Mild to hot
- Where to buy? Click here to check the latest price on Amazon
I had my first taste of El Yucateco at a Pizza My Heart in northern California. Since then, I have religiously stocked my hot sauce shelf with one of El Yucateco’s many varieties. A few rigorous splashes of El Yucateco’s spicy green or black sauce is the perfect garnish atop any Mexican-inspired dish.
El Yucateco’s classic Red Habanero Sauce has a nice mellow burn, but the Green Habanero Sauce adds just a hint of garlic and a decent step up in heat. If you really want to add some variety to your hot sauce collection, opt for the jet black Black Label Reserve Sauce for a smoky finish to any dish.
Nando’s PERi-PERi Sauce
South Africa
- Country of origin: South Africa
- Best for: chicken
- How hot is it? Mild to hot
- Where to buy? Click here to check the latest price on Amazon
The story of Nando’s is well-documented. What started as a Portugese eatery in Johannesburg has become a $1B+ enterprise spanning the entire globe.
Peri peri, also known as piri piri or African bird’s eye chili, was cultivated by the Portugese and is grown in many countries in Africa. Nando’s restaurants are famous for slathering various flavors of their PERi-PERi sauce on chicken dishes, and stashing a couple bottles of Nando’s hot sauce in the pantry is a surefire way to kick your home cooking up a notch.
The Garlic PERi-PERi sauce is an all-time favorite for any chicken-based meal, but the XX Hot PERi-PERi sauce has a nice heat without being overpowering.
Matouk’s Hot Sauce
Trinidad & Tobago
- Country of origin: Trinidad & Tobago
- Best for: dishes with grilled meat
- How hot is it? Hot to Very Hot
- Where to buy? Click here to check the latest price on Amazon
Ready for some tropical flavors? The West Indies produce exotic-tasting hot sauces laced with scotch bonnets.
Matouk has a handful of tasty options to choose from and they all pack some decent heat. Their West Indian Hot Sauce is their mildest offering (balanced out by sweet papaya) and the tangy mustard-based Calypso Hot Sauce is a nice change of pace. True pepperheads will appreciate the traditional aged scotch pepper flavor in Matouk’s original Hot Sauce and may fall in love with the even hotter Trinidad Scorpion sauce.
Pickapeppa Hot Mango Sauce
Jamaica
- Country of origin: Jamaica
- How hot is it? Medium
- Best for: chicken or shrimp
- Where to buy? Click here to check the latest price on Amazon
I used to think that Pickapeppa’s Original Brown sauce was their only offering and I was fine with that. It is an awesome core ingredient for marinades, and I especially loved using it to cook seafood.
Then I was introduced to their other sauce flavors and my life changed forever.
Sure the original Pickapeppa sauce is great, but it is not a hot sauce. It reminds me a lot of A1 steak sauce; a sweet & tangy sauce good for adding some complex flavor to a dish. However, Pickapeppa’s Hot Mango Sauce is on another level.
The sweetness is still there and enhanced with the mango notes, but the heat balances it out perfectly. If you are looking for some tropical heat without going overboard on the spiciness, the Hot Mango Sauce deserves a shot.
Picamas Salsa Brava
Guatemala
- Country of origin: Guatemala
- How hot is it? Mild
- Best for: eggs and burritos
- Where to buy? Click here to check the latest price on Amazon
Tasty and inexpensive, this is exactly the type of hot sauce that you need in your stash as an everyday option. The Guatemalan Picamas sauces are simple and effective.
The red sauce is great and a decent addition on anything, but we recommend the green salsa brava as the better of the two. Picamas bottles their hot sauces in unpretentious plastic bottles, so you may as well go for the big option with the spout. Trust me, you will use this stuff up faster than you think!
Inca’s Food Aji Amarillo Paste
Peru
- Country of origin: Peru
- How hot is it? Medium to hot
- Best for: using as a base for making spicy sauces
- Where to buy? Click here to check the latest price on Amazon
Okay so this one technically isn’t a hot sauce per se, but it’s still a condiment used to spice up your meals! Aji amarillo is a Peruvian yellow chili pepper that has a decent kick to it.
While you can use this paste to brighten up any number of dishes, it really shines through (and is nearly essential) with Peruivian cuisine.
The taste is bright and a touch of sweetness, and it can be used as a base for a variety of sauces. Check out this Salsa Huancaina recipe for making the best spicy cheese sauce known to man.
Lao Gan Ma Chili Oil Sauce
China
- Country of origin: China
- How hot is it? Hot
- Best for: noodle and rice dishes
- Where to buy? Click here to check the latest price on Amazon
If you are craving Asian spice and want to try something new that doesn’t involve dumping Huy Fong Sriracha on your meals, chili oil sauce may be the way to go.
Found on tabletops of Chinese restaurants around the world, spicy chili oil sauce is a quick way to add a lot of heat & flavor to any dish. Lao Gan Ma, which translates to Old Godmother, is a trusted staple of the culinary world.
Lao Gan Ma offers a number of chili oil flavors to choose from, but their Spicy Chili Crisp Sauce is one of our favorites. Those who are a bit more adventurous will enjoy sampling the more umami-forward Black Bean Chili Sauce.
Chung Jun One Gochujang
South Korea
- Country of origin: South Korea
- Best for: meat marinades & dipping sauces
- How hot is it? Medium
- Where to buy? Click here to check the latest price on Amazon
Think of gochujang as Korea’s version of chipotle adobo: a rich & complex paste that offers a slow-building heat to any dish. While you can sometimes find thinned-out versions that are bottled like other hot sauces, traditional gochujang should be a thick paste packaged in tub.
If you have never used gochujang before, you need to change that ASAP. This versatile hot pepper paste can be used on nearly anything. You can mix it into mayo to create a spicy dip, dollop it into soup to kick up the heat, or use it to marinade chicken before grilling it (which is my personal favorite).
Crystal Louisiana Pure Hot Sauce
United States of America
- Country of origin: USA
- Best for: fried foods and Southern cooking
- How hot is it? Mild
- Where to buy? Click here to check the latest price on Amazon
I know, I know. The United States is full of amazing hot sauces & small-time produces making ridiculously good hot sauces. Why waste a slot on something as basic as Crystal? Sure, picking ubiquitous Tabasco pepper sauce or the legendary Sriracha sauce from California would have made sense. The truth is that Crystal Louisiana Pure Hot Sauce is more than just a humble hot sauce recipe.
Crystal defines a whole culture.
Louisiana-style hot sauces (think Texas Pete hot sauce & Louisiana Brand hot sauce) are synonymous with Southern cooking. Walk into any restaurant along the Gulf and you will surely find dozens of bright red vinegar-based hot sauce bottles lined up ready for consumption. Family feuds have been started over hot sauce disagreements, and some people would go so far as saying Crystal is a part of their identity.
Sorry, Texas Pete fans; this is not a safe space for you.
Final Thoughts
We have only just scratched the surface here, and we are positive there are hot sauces out there that we have never heard of before. Humanity’s quest for flavor & heat will never end, and we want to build a community of people who are passionate about trying local cuisines and sharing their favorite hot sauces.
Since hot sauces are generally sold in small bottles, they are often small enough to be transported home with you in your carry-on bag. For this reason, we love bringing home hot sauces from our travels as souvenirs for our friends & family (although we end up keeping most of it for ourselves anyway).
Don’t see your favorite sauce or country represented above? Let us know what famous hot sauces we should be looking to pick up on our next trip in the comments below!
