The Definitive Ranking of Popular Hot Sauces, According to a Certified Chile Head

$8 from Amazon
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Heat rating: 5 out of 10
Best for: Caribbean cooking, breakfast potatoes

Marie Sharp's, a line of sauces from Belize, is extremely popular among hot sauce enthusiasts — and for good reason. It's chunky with a bright and fresh vegetal flavor from habaneros, carrots, and lime juice. The balance of acidic tang and sweetness from the carrots is just right. If any hot sauce could be called refreshing, it's this one. I had never tried Marie Sharp's before this taste test, and I'm definitely going to keep a bottle around all the time. I can see shaking this one on anything from Jamaican food to fancy cheeses and scrambled eggs.

2. El Yucateco Hot Sauce

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Heat rating: 6 out of 10
Best for: Anything Mexican

El Yucateco is a habanero-based sauce from a Mexican brand on the Yucatan peninsula where habaneros are used extensively. This is a good choice to have around because it's nice and hot with a good drizzling consistency for things such as tostadas and nachos. The habaneros give it a fruity sweetness without sugar. Because habaneros are so hot, tomato tempers this one out, though the chiles are the dominating flavor.

3. Crystal

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Heat rating: 4 out of 10
Best for: Chicken wings, gumbo

Love Buffalo-flavored anything but don't want Frank's? Crystal is a good alternative that’s possibly better — and it’s also made with aged cayenne peppers, vinegar, and salt. It's got a pronounced, pepper-forward flavor that hits you right on the top of your tongue. The heat, which is that Goldilocks level of not too hot and not too mild, lingers at the back of your throat. This is a favorite all-purpose hot sauce that's good for shaking on almost anything, especially Cajun food.

4. Yellowbird Habanero Condiment

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Heat rating: 6 out of 10
Best for: Hot dogs and burgers

Yellowbird calls itself a condiment, and the thick, smooth texture (and the squeeze bottle it comes in) certainly reinforces that. The heat sneaks up on you and then burns your tongue for a few minutes. Carrots are the number one ingredient, which gives it its thick consistency but it doesn't have as much flavor complexity as its ingredient list — which includes tangerine juice concentrate — lets on.

5. Secret Aardvark Habanero Hot Sauce

$6 from Meijer
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Heat rating: 5 out of 10
Best for: Nachos, tacos

Secret Aardvark has a devoted following, and it's one of the more interesting sauces on this list. The first ingredient is fire-roasted tomatoes, and habaneros don't come in until after carrots, onions, and other ingredients, so it's more like a tomato-based salsa than most of the other sauces. Mustard is also an interesting ingredient, giving it some tangy complexity. The aftertaste is heavy on garlic, though it's a much more pleasant fresh garlic flavor than the garlic powder so many other sauces feature.

6. Frank's RedHot Original Cayenne Pepper Sauce

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Heat rating: 3 out of 10
Best for: Anything Buffalo flavor

This popular hot sauce has become the standard buffalo flavoring for anything you can think of — but especially chicken wings. It's pretty mild, but the heat that it does have sneaks up on you after the initial vinegar acidity. Cutting it with melted butter for wings is ideal since it tempers the tang and saltiness. It's also got a slight hint of garlic from garlic powder. Lots of people really do put this on everything, myself included.

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7. Old Bay Hot Sauce

$5 from Target

Heat rating: 2 out of 10

Best for: All kinds of seafood, bloody marys

The hot sauce in this bottle is exactly what you expect it to be, and if you're a fan of Old Bay seasoning, then that's a fantastic thing. Like the infamous dry seasoning, it's heavy on celery seed and paprika, but this has an added dimension of heat from aged cayenne peppers and vinegar acidity. It's one of the more unique hot sauce flavors on this list, though some more heat would be welcome. It's custom made for any kind of seafood, from fried fish to crab boils, but don't sleep on it as a bloody mary seasoning, either.

8. Trader Joe's Yuzu Hot Sauce

$5 from Trader Joe's

Heat rating: 3 out of 10

Best for: Dumpling dipping sauce, salad dressing

This Trader Joe's yuzu hot sauce is for citrus lovers. It's made with yuzu kosho, a Japanese condiment of fermented chiles, salt, and yuzu citrus rind, giving it a bright citrus flavor that's similar to lemon. It's a great combination of sour, spicy, and salty with heat that creeps up on you. It's very thin and watery though, so be careful when pouring. Add it to any kind of dumpling sauce, cold Asian noodles, salad dressings, or chicken.

9. Famous Dave's Wilbur's Revenge Sauce

$7 from Famous Dave's
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Heat rating: 7 out of 10
Best for: Smoked meats, chicken tenders

I once made the mistake of thinking Wilbur's Revenge was just a spicy barbecue sauce and poured it all over a pork sandwich. It is very much a hot sauce, though — with a surprising intensity. It's based on Famous Dave's Devil's Spit spicy barbecue sauce, and like that sauce, it's heavy on the black pepper flavor in a tomato-heavy base. This is an excellent choice for heating up any too-mild barbecue sauce or dipping smoked sausages.

10. Slap Ya Mama Cajun Hot Sauce

$4 from Walmart

Heat rating: 4 out of 10

Best for: Jambalaya

Slap Ya Mama is a popular Cajun seasoning, so I was expecting this hot-sauce version to have Cajun flavors as well, but it's really just an aged pepper sauce like other Louisiana-style hot sauces. Still, it's a great version that's a cross between Tabasco and Frank's, with less acidity and a little more heat that sneaks up on you. It's much more well-rounded than Tabasco, and thicker, too, which is a plus in my book.

11. Nando's Hot Peri-Peri Sauce

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Heat rating: 3 out of 10
Best for: Any kind of chicken

Nando's is a worldwide restaurant chain that originated in South Africa and is known for its chicken basted in peri-peri hot sauce. This sauce, which is available in many supermarkets here, is one of the more complex on this list, with a big hit of citrus from 6% lemon puree, according to the ingredients list. You'll want to use this relatively mild sauce as its own flavor component instead of merely a heat conduit.

Marie Sharp's nopal green hot sauce — Lacey Muszynski / Cheapism

12. Marie Sharp's Nopal Green Habanero Pepper Sauce

$6 from Walmart

Heat rating: 5 out of 10

Best for: Fajitas, tacos al pastor

This is an interesting take on a green hot sauce since it's made with nopales, or cactus paddles, instead of the typical tomatillos. It's a little chunky but not quite as thick as our winner, the Belizean Heat of the same brand. It's simple and fruity thanks to the habaneros, with a lot of lime and garlic flavor. Using nopales ensures that this hot sauce is less acidic than its green tomatillo-based cousins.

13. Valentina Extra Hot

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Heat rating: 5 out of 10
Best for: Steak tacos, burritos

Valentina extra hot, also called black label for obvious reasons, is Valentina's answer to those wanting sauce that's hotter than the original. The flavor and consistency is the same as the original, but it's much spicier. It doesn't seem that way at first, but the heat hits you in the back of the throat after you swallow, and lingers warmly for quite a while. I recommend the black label over the original if you want a true hot sauce.

14. Huy Fong Sriracha

$4 from Target
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Heat rating: 3 out of 10
Best for: Chinese takeout

Sriracha, in particular the Huy Fong Foods brand, is practically synonymous with Asian food in America. The popular hot sauce and its green cap that never really works right is so well-liked that it's a pop culture icon. It's thick and full of sugar, which might contribute to its mass appeal, but adding a bunch of sugar to your food gets old fast, if you ask me. Still, it's a comforting favorite for dipping everything from eggrolls to pizza.

15. Valentina Salsa Picante

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Heat rating: 2 out of 10
Best for: Enchiladas

This is a thick, smooth sauce, and it's easy to use in place of ketchup or other condiments. It's a Mexican hot sauce brand, and it is smoother and more rounded in flavor than the Louisiana-style hot sauces. There's a familiar sweetness and tang to it, but the heat level is quite low, so it's good for beginner hot-sauce heads and children. It reminds me of canned enchilada sauce. With that price point and its middle-of-the-pack placement on this list, it's one of the better cheap hot sauces you can heat your face up with.

16. Louisiana The Perfect Hot Sauce

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Heat rating: 4 out of 10
Best for: Cajun food

Here's another cheap hot sauce clocking in over others that are three times its price on our list. Compared with the other Louisiana-style hot sauces made with aged cayenne peppers, this one has heat that really lingers on your lips as opposed to your tongue. It's quite thin and drips through the holes in saltine crackers, but it's got a simple, classic, fermented-pepper flavor, and not too much vinegar.

17. Cholula Hot Sauce

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Heat rating: 2 out of 10
Best for: French fries

We're calling it: In the ongoing Cholula vs. Tabasco debate, we land firmly on the side of Cholula. It isn't made with cayenne peppers like a lot of sauces on this list, but instead with Mexican chiles de arbol and piquin, both of which are small, hot dried peppers. It definitely makes a difference in flavor, and this sauce is deep, mellow, and slightly smoky, though a little bland overall. It's also pretty mild, but it has a smooth and viscous consistency that makes it great for dipping.

18. Tapatio Hot Sauce

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Heat rating: 4 out of 10
Best for: Cheese-covered Tex-Mex

Tapatio is another popular hot sauce that seems to regularly compete against Tabasco. So, Tapatio vs. Tabasco? Definitely the former. Tapatio is a simple, unassuming sauce. The first ingredient is water, followed by "red peppers," and indeed it tastes like the generic ideal of a red pepper. It's also very light on acidity and vinegar, which in combination with it being a pepper puree and not much else makes it very reminiscent of Mexican salsa.

19. Texas Pete Hot Sauce

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Heat rating: 2 out of 10
Best for: Adding acidity to rich foods

Texas Pete is vinegar-forward — it's the first ingredient, after all — and a little bitter, like the peppers weren't ripe when they were aged. It's also pretty bland, thin, and has little heat, making it unremarkable at best. At least it's still better than Tabasco, I guess?

20. Melinda's Original Habanero Hot Sauce

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Heat rating: 3 out of 10
Best for: Mixing into the Papa John's Garlic Sauce

Though this one lists habaneros as the main ingredient, it's pretty mild and rather uninteresting. The ingredients list is similar to other great sauces, including carrots, onion, and lime juice, but it's the garlic that really pops out and sticks with you, similar to the aftertaste you experience the morning after you ate too much garlic bread.

21. Tabasco Pepper Sauce

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Heat rating: 2 out of 10
Best for: People who are afraid of hot sauce

Tabasco’s popularity remains a mystery. A lot of people want to know which is the best Tabasco sauce, and if we had to make a pick, it's this one — but don't consider that a ringing endoresement. It's so thin that it doesn't stay on a cracker at all, and it tastes more like vinegar than anything else, let alone a pepper. There are flecks of pepper throughout the thin sauce base, which makes it seem like it's never actually pureed or emulsified all the way. If you're new to hot sauce, don't even bother with Tabasco despite the brand recognition.

Firelli's Italian hot sauce — Lacey Muszynski / Cheapism

22. Firelli Italian Hot Sauce

$6 from Walmart

Heat rating: 2 out of 10

Best for: Meatball subs

I'm a sucker for a beautiful bottle, and Firelli does not disappoint in that aspect. The sauce itself doesn't reach the same standards, though. Thanks to porcini mushroom powder, the first flavor (and smell) you notice is mushrooms, which is pretty off-putting in a hot sauce. Once you get past that punch of earthiness, you get a sweet, complex sauce full of roasted red peppers, balsamic vinegar, and Calabrian chiles. It's complex, deep red in color, and almost like an Italian barbecue sauce since it's not very hot.

23. Cholula Chipotle Hot Sauce

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Heat rating: 2 out of 10
Best for: Beans, barbecued meat

This is not a good alternative Cholula. The smokiness is acrid, and that hits your tongue instantly. It mellows out into a familiar chipotle flavor, but the lingering aftertaste is more like inhaling campfire smoke than delicious smoked chiles.

24. Tabasco Cayenne Garlic Pepper Sauce

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Heat rating: 2 out of 10
Best for: Gifting to your vampire enemies

While the garlic version of Tabasco solves the consistency problem because it's a much thicker sauce, it somehow tastes even more terrible than the original. The garlic is acrid and sharp, and it's all you can detect on the lingering, relentless aftertaste.

25. Dave's Insanity