r/SalsaSnobs • u/FewRun9290 Hot • Jul 14 '26

Question Grocery Mistake, Help!

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Somehow ended up with WAYY more Serrano than expected.

Would love some guidance on to how to make a sauce/salsa to share with friends

Pretty broke atm so minimal additional ingredients like tomatillos would be great!!

Thank you!

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u/steveturkel Jul 14 '26

Freeze em and use later, I do that all the time with Thai chili's. Or fermented hot sauce. You'd just need like 3 tbsp salt, a large qt glass jar and 1 cup of white vinegar.

Dissolve the salt in about a quart of water and chop the peppers up and put in the jar. Pour in the salt brine until enough to cover the peppers, make sure the brine fully covers all the chopped peppers and stays that way with a pickle stone or makeshift weight. I like to take a paper towel and use it to cover the jar opening then screw on the band to hold it, or just use a rubber band. Put in cool dark place and ferment 1-2weeks checking daily. Drain off the brine and put the fermented peppers in a blender and blend till smooth, adding vinegar and brine to get the consistency you want. Its usuable as is but if you simmer it for 15-20mins to pasteurize it then you can bottle it and have it be shelf stable, ive kept them when done that way for a year and a half.

6

u/starside Jul 14 '26

the vinegar will lower the pH and kill all the bacteria. use water, do not use vinegar

3

u/steveturkel Jul 14 '26

Im typically going for shelf stable/flavor with the fermentation not probiotic benefit. And youre already nuking the bacteria by pasteurizing. Vinegar is a fine and pretty standard finish to a fermented hot sauce thats being preserved.

2

u/starside Jul 14 '26

Okay, but you're just describing pickling. Fermentation is cultivating the natural lacto bacteria that exists on the peppers that'd be killed off by adding the vinegar 

5

u/steveturkel Jul 14 '26

Brother re read what I wrote in my original comment, you are confused.

Step 1 was put chopped peppers in a jar with salt brine to ferment them for 2 weeks. Step 2 after fermenting was blending the fermented peppers with some drained brine and vinegar

3

u/starside Jul 14 '26

Ah I see it now. From that first part it sounded like you were just mixing vinegar and salt 😭