Hot Strawberry Sauce

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Posting the same recipe year after year looks probably weird, but I simply cannot resist presenting once more this extraordinary and surprising strawberry sauce. Last year I invented it for the first time, inspired by the strawberry BBQ sauce recipes I kept on seeing on internet and stripping them down to vinegar, sugar, peppers and strawberries.  I was amazed – and still am – at how hot peppers bring out the strawberry flavours. I thought I had preserved enough of the sauce to survive a year, but I was wrong. The tiny jars and bottles were disappearing so quickly, I had to limit myself to a certain amount opened every month. Now that the strawberry season has started I plan to make as many batches as I can manage and make sure I will not be forced to limit my consumption.

I used once more the Peruvian aji panca dried peppers, with their typical, but subtle smoky flavour. I buy them in a small shop selling the US, Mexican and Peruvian food products. Of course, if you cannot get aji panca, use any dried, moderately hot, but preferably whole peppers, without seeds. The taste will be very good too.

The sauce can be used straight away, kept in the fridge for at least a month, frozen practically forever or processed in sealed jars/bottles and kept in the pantry for one-two years. It’s excellent on grilled poultry and pork, on toast, on open sandwiches, with fried/grilled tofu, as a dip for dumplings, spring rolls, vegetables or savoury biscuits…

This time my strawberries were a bit acid, but the sauce was still fabulous. The colour depends on the fruit variety and the vinegar. This time it was particularly dark and I preferred it this way.

Preparation: 45 minutes+jars processing

Ingredients:

300g strawberries

100 – 150g white sugar

200 ml (white) wine or cider vinegar (mine was 4,5%)

1/2 teaspoon salt

3 whole dried aji panca peppers without stems and seeds (you can use any kind of  dried moderately hot peppers)

Wash the strawberries, remove the caps and stems.

Put all the vinegar and 100g sugar in a pan, add the whole peppers and let them simmer for 10 minutes on a very low heat. Put aside.

Mix the warm liquid in a blender, add the strawberries and salt, mix again. Pour back to the pan and let it simmer for 20 minutes. Check if the sauce is sweet enough and, if necessary, add more sugar (or vinegar if you think it’s too sweet). Let it simmer for 10 more minutes.

/At this point you can (after the sauce has cooled down) either freeze it, or keep it in the fridge for a couple of weeks, or process it in the jars, as described below, and store it in your pantry for at least a year!/

Pour the sauce, still hot, into sterilised jars. Cover with lids. Leave the jars to cool.

Place the cool jars into a big pan, the bottom lined with an old kitchen towel folded in two (this will prevent the jars from breaking), cover up with hot – but not boiling- water to the level just below the lid. Bring to boil and keep on a very low heat, in simmering water, for around 20 minutes.
Stick on self-adhesive labels, write the name of the sauce and don’t forget to mark the date.

Published by Sissi

24 Replies to “Hot Strawberry Sauce”

  1. This is quite innovative/ingenious:) I tried apricot (or maybe strawberry) jam with chilli sometime ago and it was really awesome. I will for sure be trying this sometime during summer. I am imagining it will go really well with cheese sandwich, ham, various beans etc. Glad to see this, I didn’t see your post a year ago!:)

    1. Thank you! Last year I also tried other hot fruit sauces and most of them were excellent! Plums were particularly good. Apricots too, but required however a lot of sugar. This year I’ll continue my hot fruit sauces experiments.

  2. This looks very interesting, I recently tasted chocolate with chili pepper and it was divine! Maybe it’s time for some spicy fruit sauce!

    1. Hi Jeno, thanks for the comment! Most hot fruit sauces taste wonderful, but the strawberry one is addictive. I have also tasted chocolate with hot peppers and really enjoyed it. My favourite chocolatier makes chocolates by soaking cigars in chocolate and taking them out before forming the tiny chocolates, they scratch a bit the throat, like a cigar…. Extraordinary (although in very small amounts).

  3. This sounds so intriguing! I’ve never had savoury (and hot) strawberry sauce. I’d love to try it. Thank you for sharing the recipe :), you’re so creative!

  5. HOT strawberry sauce??? That’s something new to me, and it is a very brave attempt to mix sweet and spicy together (I thought they are only good in sauces!)
    This looks really unique, and very very creative!!:) Bravo for this out of the box recipe, you definitely got everyone’s attention!!;)

    1. Thank you very much, Christy, for such a flattering comment! And welcome to my blog! I am very happy you like the idea!

    1. Bea, dzieki serdeczne! I dzieki za link. Bardzo ciekawie wyglada! Ja niestety musze i cukier i ocet dodawac, bo inaczej przetwory nie wytrzymalyby caly rok. Rowniez zycze milego dnia!

  7. No no no, it WAS great that you repost this recipe Sissi! Otherwise I wouldn’t have known! Looks very interesting that you use strawberries for the sauce and I’m so curious now how it tastes like!

    1. Nami, thank you! I feel like reposting it every year 😉 and would love to serve it to everyone who reads it! I was myself surprised how good it turned out to be. (It is delicious with many Japanese dishes…).

  9. Oh I love the look of this and am bookmarking it. I made something similar last year with Blackberries, it was based on 101 Cookbooks recipe. Can’t wait to try this one, especially as the strawberry season is approaching. Thanks for sharing.

    1. Thank you! And welcome to my blog! I have never tried making a hot blackberry sauce. Thanks for the idea!

  10. Hi there,

    This is looking absolutely delightful. Loved the new combo of ingredients and the recipe is so nicely made and presented. Saving this recipe of urs and wud love to give ur version a try on the coming weekend. Have a great day….Sonia !!!

    1. Hi Sonia, welcome to my blog! Thank your for such a kind comment. I am very happy you want to try this sauce! Let me know if you enjoyed it!

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