Hell’s Kitchen – Sriracha Hot Sauce

Bitter: 🟡🟡🟡○○

Salty: 🟡🟡🟡🟡○

Sour/Tangy:🟡🟡🟡🟡🟡

Sweet: 🟡○○○○

Umami: 🟡○○○○

Heat: 🟡○○○○○○○○○

Quick Flavor Notes: Harsh, salty, chemically

Recommended: No

Texture: Thin

Ingredients: Aged Chili Peppers, Water, Distilled Vinegar, Salt, Xanthan Gum, Garlic, Sriracha Powder (Salt, Modified Food Starch, Polysorbate 60, Oleoresin Paprika [color], Natural Flavors)

This is the second hot sauce I’ve reviewed from the Hell’s Kitchen four-pack gift set. There is a full hot sauce brand called Hell’s Kitchen Hot Sauce based in NYC that has nothing to do with these sauces, and I would enjoy trying some of their sauces someday. Likewise, while this sauce is branded with the logo of the Hell’s Kitchen TV show which stars Gordon Ramsay the lack of his name appearing anywhere on the packaging leads me to believe this was a promotional deal made by the production company of the show without his direct involvement. These are produced by Maud Borup which appears to be a company specializing primarily in holiday candy and chocolate gift boxes.

Thinking about Gordon Ramsay made me think about Uncle Roger (the alter-ego of Malaysian comedian Nigel Ng) who’s done a number of videos both reacting to and even cooking with Gordon Ramsay. Of course, Uncle Roger is most famous for his roastings of Jamie Oliver cooking segments which is where this becomes relevant to this sauce. In his video lambasting Jamie Oliver’s Pad Thai he makes a point that when you’ve taken enough liberties with a recipe you can no longer call it the original dish. Everyone has their own opinions about authenticity and how much variation is kosher, but I believe it’s fair to say that when cooking Pad Thai certain core elements are expected and the same holds true when making a Sriracha.

Sriracha, like Pad Thai, is of Thai origin and dates back over one hundred years. Since its inception in the town or Sri Racha, Thailand the recipe has been consistent – fermented Thai chiles (typically red spur chiles which are a milder variety but some brands have also make it with Thai birdseye chiles for a spicier version) along with fermented garlic, sugar, and vinegar. The most popular brand in the USA, Huy Fong, uses jalapenos instead of the Thai chiles, but otherwise keeps the formula consistent with fermented chiles, garlic, sugar, and vinegar. With all of the history it’s well established what a Sriracha is so it’s with confidence that I can say Hell’s Kitchen Sriracha Hot Sauce has as much to do with sriracha as I do with Scarlet Johansson. Starting off with unnamed “aged chile pepper” this sauce does admittedly contain vinegar and garlic, but then again so do most other hot sauces. The bizarreness happens with the “sriracha powder” which includes salt, modified food starch, polysorbate 60, oleoresin paprika, and “natural flavors”. Polysorbate 60 is a synthetic emulsifier used in cosmetics, foods, and pharmaceuticals. Oleoresin paprika is pepper extract from mild peppers primarily used as a coloring. None of those ingredients however, other than the salt, belong in sriracha. Speaking of salt, Hell’s Kitchen Sriracha is loaded with it at 160mg per tsp. Despite the starch and emulsifiers this sauce is still very thin in texture similar to a Louisiana style hot sauce, and smells much more like one than anything like a sriracha.

Like the Hell’s Kitchen Whiskey Habanero Hot Sauce which I’ve reviewed before this sauce is incredibly harsh in terms of flavor. The vinegar is bottom-tier quality with the unpleasant aggressive bite that comes with vinegars meant to be used more as a cleaning supply than a foodstuff. The peppers used taste like cayenne to me, and in fact this sauce tastes like a cheap Louisiana style hot sauce far more than any sriracha. The garlic comes through but there’s virtually no sweetness, and a sweet element is de rigueur for a sriracha. The result is a sauce that primarily tastes like Frank’s but somehow even lower quality mixed with the chemical aftertaste that Texas Pete brings to the table. The “natural flavors” used in the sriracha powder do somehow give the faintest aftertaste of an actual sriracha, but it’s very faint. It’s as if they took an empty bottle that used to hold a sriracha and then filled it with a cheap Frank’s knock-off. The texture is also completely wrong, as srirachas are supposed to have a certain thickness to them while this sauce is quite watery.

I tried this first with some instant pho noodles from the local Asian grocery store. Hell’s Kitchen Sriracha did not in any way give me the same effect a real sriracha would in the bowl, and instead just added a very unpleasant harsh acidity. This sauce did fare better when used in a ham and swiss sandwich. The smoky ham and piquant swiss were enough to offset the harsher elements of this sauce and the acidity helped brighten it up, but I would have preferred pretty much any higher quality Louisiana style hot sauce in the same application. I wasn’t very thrilled at trying this out with more food but I did give it a shot with wings, not something I’d normally go for with a real sriracha, but then again this isn’t one. The harshness came out more on wings though the blue cheese did tame it some, still bad.

Obviously this sauce does not get my recommendation. Objectively this actually tastes a slight bit better than their Whiskey Habanero Hot Sauce, but we’re comparing sitting through a Twilight movie marathon vs sitting through a Madea movie marathon here, both options realistically suck.