Monk Sauce – Habanero Pepper Sauce (red)

Bitter: ⭐✰✰✰✰

Salty: ⭐✰✰✰✰

Sour/Tangy: ⭐⭐⭐✰✰

Sweet: ⭐⭐⭐✰✰

Umami: ⭐✰✰✰✰

Heat: ⭐⭐✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰

Quick Flavor Notes: Fruity, Vegetal, Sweet, Savory

Texture: Medium and mostly smooth

Recommended: Yes

Ingredients: Habanero Peppers, Vinegar, Onions, Carrots, Garlic, & Salt

Get it from: https://www.countrymonks.biz/habanero-hot-sauce/

Subiaco Abbey, located in rural NW Arkansas, has a spicy secret. While stationed in Belize Father Richard Walz learned how to make hot sauce from the local habanero peppers and in 2003 when he returned to the abbey he brought some of the seeds from those peppers back with him. Planting those seeds in the abbey’s gardens led to the creation of Monk Sauce. The Benedictine monks of Subiaco Abbey still make this sauce from peppers grown on their own grounds today and sell it to raise money to support their monastery and to further their mission. The monks make three varieties of this sauce – a red habanero, a smoked red habanero, and a green habanero. This is their unsmoked red habanero variety.

The recipe for Monk Sauce Habanero Pepper Sauce is as clean as can be. Starting with their habanero peppers as the first ingredient, and they make a point on their website that they used a greater proportion of peppers to other ingredients than most other sauces, the rest of the ingredients list is very similar to other Belizean style sauces with vinegar, onions, carrots, garlic, and salt. Having tried numerous sauces from Marie Sharp’s as well as other Caribbean sauces it’s a formula I’m familiar with and one the Father surely learned in Belize but it’s always tasty. Monk Sauce has a smooth texture with a medium consistency and an aroma that is habanero-forward but with some sweet notes underneath.

Despite the monks stating that this sauce is 250,000 Scovilles on their website the actual heat level is rather mild. The sauce is, however, still delicious. It is habanero forward and with the case of this red variety really brings out the fruity elements of the pepper with just a slight vegetal undertone. The carrots add both some thickness and sweetness to the sauce while the onions and garlic add their earthy savory flavors to the mix. It’s not a particularly garlicky hot sauce, but you can detect just a hint of it in the back. Monk Sauce Red Habanero Pepper Sauce is also pleasantly tangy without being too vinegary – the carrots and large proportion of habaneros balance out the vinegar. This sauce is also very low sodium at only 10mg/tsp but never tastes like it’s lacking salt.

Pairing a sauce like this is always fairly easy – after all habaneros, carrots, garlic, and onions are fairly universal flavors. This is great on sandwiches, in white bean soup, on empanadas, and even on Hamburger Helper (though I have to admit my purchase and preparation of a box of that did not live up to my memories of it from childhood, in fact it’s fairly unappetizing in both appearance and flavor, but this sauce helped quite a bit). This sauce can easily go on anything, I managed to use my bottle up inside of less than a week.

I’m happy to recommend Monk Sauce Red Habanero Pepper Sauce. Not only does it have a cool story – being made by Benedictine monks in a rural corner of Arkansas with peppers they grow themselves, it’s a delicious sauce with great flavor that’s super flexible. It’s also all natural with no artificial preservatives, colors, flavors, or thickeners.