We had a bountiful harvest of hot peppers so I made a large batch of hot sauce. This year we used an Instant Pot. I’m happy to report it made the task a lot easier. We did the cleaning, cooking and blending outside. Trying this indoors can be suicidal, so be warned.
Here’s the recipe we used. Quantities and sauté time will need to be adjusted depending on the amount of peppers you have.
1 ¾ lb. of washed, de-stemmed, hot peppers
1 1/2 cups sliced onions
1 bulb chopped or sliced garlic cloves
1 T. olive oil
2 cups water
2 cups vinegar
Also a first for me, I used scissors to cut off the stems rather than using a knife and a cutting board. This is so much easier! Our mix of peppers were mostly cayenne types and some larger Thai peppers. I tried using the very small Thai hot peppers that grow like a little Christmas tree, but I gave up on those after de-stemming several dozen. The yield was not worth the effort involved.
Using the sauté function add olive oil, peppers, onions, and garlic into the Instant Pot. Sauté with the top off for about 10 minutes stirring frequently until the mix is softened and cooked down.
After sautéing, add about 2 cups water**, put the top on the Instant Pot and pressure cook for on high for 10 minutes with a natural release. **Note – if you have fewer peppers, use less water. When using the Instant Pot very little steam escapes. We used 3 cups water and the mix was a little thinner than we were expecting.
Place the cooked mixture into a food processor and puree for several minutes.
I pushed the mix through a screen and it removed most of the seeds, but not all. Judy had suggested I run the mix through a food mill, but I thought that would be more difficult. The screen, with a fairly large mesh, worked perfectly.
I added 2 cups of white vinegar to the mix. Because we included a fair amount of green hot peppers, it looked like a pumpkin pie filling, but I don’t think it would make a good pie. We put a pint and a half into sterilized jars. The rest we froze in pint dairy containers. The sauce keeps at least six months in the refrigerator,
