Back in 2015, a reader called Tom Brooke stumbled across this blog from Ligonier, Pennsylvania, and left a comment that has stayed with me. He noted that Si Racha is a town in Thailand — and he was right. That's where sriracha was born, in the 1930s, when a Thai cook named Thanom Chakkapak began making her own chilli sauce and named it after her hometown. The version most of us know — the one in the clear bottle with the green cap and the rooster on the label — came much later, created by Vietnamese-American David Tran, who founded Huy Fong Foods in Los Angeles in 1980. He never trademarked the name. The rest, as they say, is condiment history.

This is my Nearly Series homemade sriracha sauce. It also forms part of my upcoming Nearly Hoisin – because yes, sriracha is one of the building blocks of a good homemade hoisin sauce.

The original post from 2015 used a quick blitz-and-reduce method. This version does things properly — a 14-day ferment with a 2% brine, garlic, and red jalapeños. The result is deeper, more complex, and considerably more satisfying than anything out of a squeeze bottle.

How to Make a Homemade Sriracha Sauce

Ingredients

For the ferment

• 225 g red jalapeños, stems removed, roughly chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, peeled and smashed
• 4.5 g fine sea salt (2% of solids weight)
• Filtered water to fill a 500 ml jar — tap water contains chlorine or chloramine, which can inhibit fermentation.

A note on water — use filtered, not tap. Chlorine and chloramine can inhibit fermentation. I use my Ecofiltro.

To finish

• 40 ml white wine vinegar
• 1 tsp honey
• Reserved brine to loosen if needed

Yield: 350 ml — one jar

Method

Ferment (14 days)

1. Pack the chopped jalapeños and smashed garlic cloves into a 500 ml jar.
2. Dissolve 4.5 g of fine sea salt in a small amount of filtered water, then top up the jar until all the solids are fully submerged.
3. Weight the solids down below the brine line using a fermenting weight. Cover loosely and leave to ferment at room temperature for 14 days.

To finish

4. Strain the ferment, reserving the brine.
5. Add the fermented solids to a blender along with the white wine vinegar and honey.
6. Blend until completely smooth. Add a splash of reserved brine if needed to loosen.
7. Pass through a fine sieve, pressing firmly with the back of a spoon to extract as much sauce as possible. Discard the remaining skin, seeds, and membranes.
8. Pour the strained sauce into a small saucepan and bring to a gentle simmer, stirring frequently, until the sauce has reduced slightly and thickened.
9. Bottle hot into a sterilised 350 ml jar.

Yield: 350 ml — one jar

A Note on Heat

The heat level in this homemade sriracha sauce depends on your chillies. Red jalapeños with white flecks on the skin tend to run hotter – worth bearing in mind when you're choosing your chillies. If you want to dial the heat back, a small amount of red bell pepper in the ferment will soften things without affecting the colour.

This recipe is part of the Nearly Series — cupboard classics made from scratch in a Spanish kitchen. Explore the full collection.

Wonky photos, proper condiments, genuine adventures — The Flexible Chef