After trying 10 different bottles of ghost pepper sauce, we found the best ghost pepper hot sauce, so you can scorch your tongue with the best flavor possible. Read the full, sweat-inducing ranking of the best hot sauce with ghost pepper.
It wasn’t long after I began my love affair with hot sauces that I zeroed in on ghost pepper hot sauce. Maybe I was born with a taste for masochism. Maybe it started as a passive aggressive way to defend against people taking food off of my plate. Maybe it’s Maybelline. Probably not the latter.
If you’re a fellow spice enthusiast, you might already be familiar with ghost peppers. Also known as bhut jolokia, the ghost pepper is regarded as one of the spiciest peppers out there, exceeding 1,000,000 on the Scoville scale (that’s over 100 times hotter than the hottest jalapeño). And it makes a dang good sauce.
If you’re in the market for the very best ghost pepper hot sauce, I’ve got you. I put myself, my palate, and my digestive system through a screaming hot taste test to find the best tasting ghost pepper hot sauce, so that you don’t have to.
For the format of the test, I thought: Hot Ones, but make all the sauces painful. I also altered a few negligible details, like, I got rid of the A-list celebrities, I didn’t interview anyone, and I sat in for Sean Evans. So, what it actually looked like was me and a brave friend, a pack of saltine crackers, dinosaur chicken nuggets, ten bottles of ghost pepper sauce, and a dream.
I ranked these ghost pepper hot sauces on overall taste—not just which was spiciest. Each sauce sample started with a sniff, then I dipped a nugget into the sauce, and tried a swipe of sauce on its own before I eloquently recorded my thoughts with a poker face and definitely didn’t whimper at any point. Here’s the best ghost pepper hot sauce you can buy if you’re as brave and strong as me.
- Melinda’s Ghost Pepper Sauce
-
Melinda’s a sneaky one. She’s chunky. Her ghost pepper sauce comes out drop by drop, so slowly that I thought it was going to be way spicier. It actually ended up being relatively tame—pleasantly fruity, even—but Melinda gets docked points for toying with my fragile expectations, and lack of ease of hot sauce access. The flavor is good, though, if you’re looking for a slightly milder ghost pepper hot sauce.
Credit: Liv Averett / Melinda’s
- TGI Friday’s Ghost Pepper Sauce
-
I was skeptical, but generally mid, Jack-of-all-trades TGI Friday’s did a good job. This ghost pepper sauce can hang with the indie brands. It’s not terribly spicy, but it is delicious. It’s a little like a ghost pepper just came to the party, said hello, then pulled an Irish goodbye after leaving just a seed or two behind. It’s like a spicier Cholula, for which there will always be room in my life and my fridge. It’s the best ghost pepper hot sauce to use on TGI Friday’s style apps—tenders, mac and cheese bites, etc.
Credit: Liv Averett / Amazon
- Adoboloco Hamajang Smoky Ghost Pepper Hot Sauce
-
I learned in this taste test that I really like smoky hot sauces, which is valuable information that I will find a way to work into all introductions moving forward. Between the tangy apple cider vinegar, tolerable but exciting spice level, and smokiness that starts at the very first sniff, I don’t know if this gives more Texas roadstyle BBQ or campfire, but I’m not mad at either one.
Credit: Liv Averett / Amazon
- Yellow Bird Ghost Pepper Hot Sauce
-
It may be a trick of the eye because of the bottle shape, but this ghost pepper hot sauce came across like a spicier sriracha. It’s not painfully spicy, but the bottle boasts four out of five flames so maybe there’s a version out there for the slightly more masochistic. I’m happy with this level, though. It’s almost a little sweet at first, and then it settles into a pleasant tingle that I would happily welcome onto any scrambled eggs henceforth.
Credit: Liv Averett / Yellowbird
- Badia Ghost Pepper Hot Sauce
-
This ghost pepper sauce smells like a spicier Buffalo sauce—and it tastes darn good, too. It’s sharp and bright without being bitter, and it’s plenty spicy without being painful. I don’t have such a refined palate that I would have been able to identify the lemon, papaya, and passionfruit in the mix, but I can definitely appreciate the brightness they lend to the flavor.
Credit: Liv Averett / Amazon
- Palo Alto Firefighters Ghost Pepper Sauce
-
The first thing I wrote was that this ghost pepper hot sauce “smells amazing.” I stand by that. It tastes a lot like BBQ sauce, without the sometimes overwhelming sweetness or gloopiness. It has layers of smoke flavor and seasonings that reminded me of something that I couldn’t quite put my finger on at first. My friend likened it to Nando’s chicken sauce, but my eureka moment was realizing that it tastes like taco seasoning. It’s not very spicy for a ghost pepper sauce, but it is very delicious.
Credit: Liv Averett / Heat Hot Sauce Shop
- Chuffed Sweet Heat
-
No contest, this is the best ghost pepper hot sauce we tasted. It’s truly a great marriage of sweet and spicy. It has a great consistency—it’s thick without being heavy. It has a kick, but it definitely isn’t so spicy that you can’t taste the mango, pineapple, or curry seasoning. I will be putting this ghost pepper hot sauce on everything and you can’t stop me.
Credit: Liv Averett / Amazon
Best Mild
Best for Fried Food
Best Smoky
Best for Eggs
Best Fruity
Best for Tacos
Best of the Best
Other ghost pepper hot sauces we tried: Dave’s Gourmet Ghost Pepper Jolokia Hot Sauce, Ass Kickin’ Ghost Pepper Hot Sauce, Torchbearer Zombie Apocalypse Ghost Chili Hot Sauce
Social Media