Louisiana Hot Sauce substitute

Substitutes for Louisiana Hot Sauce with ratios

1. 2Frank's RedHot

   Close match

   Use the same amount

   The easiest supermarket swap and close enough that most people cannot tell them apart in a cooked dish.

   What changes

   Best for

   buffalo wings and buffalo sauce, chicken dredges and buttermilk marinades, dips and dressings, soups and stews

   Frank's is also a cayenne-and-vinegar sauce, but it is noticeably thicker in the bottle and carries garlic powder, so a dish made with it tastes slightly more savoury and a touch less purely acidic. In a buffalo sauce that is arguably an improvement. In a delicate remoulade you may notice the garlic. It is a little less salty than Louisiana Brand, so taste before you add more salt.

2. 3Tabasco, cut with white vinegar

   Different taste

   Use 1 teaspoon Tabasco plus 2 teaspoons white vinegar for every 1 tablespoon Louisiana hot sauce

   Works well once you stop treating it as an equal swap and dilute it back to Louisiana strength.

   What changes

   Best for

   gumbo, etouffee and other cooked dishes, marinades, bloody marys, any recipe calling for a tablespoon or more

   Tabasco is a much more concentrated sauce built on tabasco peppers aged three years in barrels, and it tastes sharper, hotter and distinctly more fermented, with a thin sting rather than a broad warmth. Poured in 1:1 it will make a buffalo sauce genuinely too hot to eat and give the dish a puckering, almost sour edge. Diluted as above it lands close, though slightly more acidic and with a faint barrel funk you will not get from Louisiana Brand. Add the salt back with a pinch of salt per tablespoon, since you have watered the sauce down.

3. 4Homemade cayenne vinegar sauce

   Different texture

   3 tablespoons white vinegar plus 1 teaspoon cayenne plus ½ teaspoon salt makes about ¼ cup

   Three pantry items and thirty seconds, and it does the actual job better than any wrong-style bottle.

   What changes

   Best for

   cooked dishes where the sauce disappears into the pot, buffalo sauce, sausage gravy, greens and beans, when you have no hot sauce in the house

   Whisk it, let it stand five minutes so the cayenne hydrates, and shake before using. It will look grainy and separate rather than staying smoothly suspended, and it lacks the mellow, slightly fruity note that comes from peppers fermenting in a barrel, so it tastes a bit flatter and more directly peppery. Nobody will notice in gumbo. You will notice at the table on a plate of eggs. Use apple cider vinegar instead of white for a slightly softer, fruitier result.

4. 5Cholula or Valentina

   Different taste

   Use the same amount

   Fine in a pinch, but these will make your Cajun dish taste Mexican.

   What changes

   Best for

   table use on eggs, tacos and rice, dressings and dips, casual splashing where the cuisine does not matter

   Both are vinegar-based and comparably mild, so the acid-and-salt job gets done. The flavour is where it turns: Cholula is built on arbol and piquin chiles with a clear oregano and spice note, and Valentina is thicker, less sharp and slightly sweet with more of a dried-chile earthiness. A gumbo finished with either tastes a little herbal and dusty rather than clean and bright. Acceptable when it is what you have, not what you would choose for a Louisiana recipe.

5. 6Sriracha

   Taste and texture differ

   Use not recommended as a direct swap; if you must, use half as much and add 1 teaspoon vinegar for every tablespoon of louisiana hot sauce

   The worst common choice, and worth explaining so you do not ruin a dish reaching for it.

   What changes

   Best for

   nothing in Cajun or Southern cooking, at most, a last-resort splash in a dip or mayonnaise

   Sriracha is a thick, sweet, heavily garlicked chile paste in a bottle. It has sugar, it has body, and it has far less free acid. Stirred into a buffalo sauce it goes sticky, sweet and clinging rather than thin and tangy, and the garlic dominates. In gumbo it muddies the pot. If it is genuinely all you have, thin it with vinegar and use less, and accept that the dish is now a different dish.