What’s better than sharing your love of chilli sauce with friends? Challenging them to a chilli contest!
So whether you’re inspired by the show ‘Hot Ones’ or just feel like making your very own homemade wing roulette - hold on to your habaneros because we’re going to go step by step on how to host your very own chilli sauce challenge.
1. Planning Your Chilli Sauce Challenge
We’re obsessed with hot sauces, so for us, a chance to get some friends together and try a bunch of spicy food is all the reason we need. But, it can be a great idea to pair the hot sauce-tasting party with some other activities.
Spicy Movie Night:
No not that! Get your mind out of the gutter. I mean getting the gang over to watch a movie and making the hot sauce challenge part of the event.
Games Night:
Cards, Board games or even Dungeons and Dragons, you can pair a spicy food contest with all kinds of table-based fun and even have your guests breathing real fire as they work their way up the heat levels.
Match Day:
Football, Rugby, Tennis, anyone? Turn up the heat by adding a chilli sauce challenge to halftime. It could be a great way of taking everyone’s minds off yet another crushing defeat - at least you can blame the chilli for the tears.
2. Chilli Challenge Rules and Setup
If it’s a true competition you’ll have to level the playing field and take some precautions for your spicy challenge. So here are a few guidelines to help you.
Preparing for the Heat
Trust us when we say spicy food is better if you don’t have an empty stomach. Have some pre-challenge nibbles around and let the contestants snack a bit beforehand.
How to handle hot food
Not Water! It’s well-known but worth repeating. Water spreads that lovely capsicum around the mouth stoking the flames. The best things to cool your palette after eating hot sauce are: Dairy products (milk or yoghurt are winners), Starchy foods (bread or rice) or Acidic foods (lemon or orange.) Have them ready and on hand before you take that first bite.
Chilli Competition Setup
Get everyone around in a circle to see the reactions and enjoy the best banter as you take turns tasting. It’s also a good idea to have a ‘judge’ portion out the sauce to ensure there’s no cheating.
Best Things To Dip Into Hot Sauce
Are you pouring it over hot wings, or tortilla chips or just eating it straight off a spoon? Consider a nice neutral base that fits the theme of your night. Also, you might want to consider things like how long they can take per sauce and if there’s an amount of the dipper that they have to finish before moving on.
3. Choosing the Right Chilli Sauces
Finding the best chilli sauce for challenges can be tough. You’re looking for a good range of sauces that moves through the heat levels with a few really hot ones that are going to make your contestants sweat!
Understanding the Scoville Scale
There’s a handy scale that’s used to tell the different heat levels of hot sauce. It measures the concentration of capsaicin, the chemical responsible for the spicy sensation. The scale ranges from the bell peppers at the bottom (zero Scoville Heat Units, or SHUs) to the likes of the Carolina Reaper at the top, clocking in at over 2 million SHUs.
How many hot sauces make a challenge?
It depends on how many people you have and how long the challenge goes. You’ll want to ensure that there’s a decent step up in spice level between each sauce and might even save a couple of bottles in reserve for a ‘bonus round’.
Don’t settle for sauces pumped full of artificial nastiness, there are so many amazing handmade all-natural hot sauces available but let me include a shameless plug for our own.
The Ultimate Chilli Sauce Challenge 9-bottle set
This bundle has all the hot sauces you need to host your own chilli challenge. In our classic 7 sauce set, each chilli pepper is balanced with sweet fruits and other delicious natural ingredients to let the real heat and flavour of the chilli shine through.
The Superhot fermented chilli sauce 3-bottle set really packs a punch. We ferment the chillies for months to turn up the heat without sacrificing flavours. Definitely save these ones for last as they’re the hottest sauces we do. Still, you’ll be surprised at their depth and complexity of flavour - all while your mouth is on fire!
Don't settle for mass produced sauces that are full of suger and artifical heat. Grab yourself the Ultimate Chilli Sauce Challenge 9-bottle set and be ready to hot your own hot sauce contest at a drop of a hat!
4. Judging and Prizes
All competitions have to have a winner, right? The real reward for hosting a chilli sauce challenge is all of the photos and videos of your friends and family with bright red faces, watering eyes and huge smiles.
How to choose the winner
There are a couple of ways to crown the hot sauce champion. Was it the person who finished first, the person who made it to the end or just the last one standing?
Hot sauce challenge prizes
What do they get? Bragging rights, of course. But the best gift you can give the chilli sauce king or queen is a DIY hot sauce challenge winner's kit you could include a little trophy, a certificate and of course more hot sauce! So maybe grab a few extra bottles or just the ones that are too hot for you to keep.
Let the Chilli Sauce Challenge Begin!
Getting a load of friends and family together to enjoy some spicy treats can be a great way to add some heat as the nights get colder. Just make sure you follow our advice to get the most out of your event.
If you’re looking to pick up our range of hot sauces that are perfect for hosting your own chilli sauce challenge then you’re in luck! Order ‘The Ultimate Chilli Sauce Challenge 9 Bottle Sauce Set’ for just £64.99 and you’ll save over 10% and qualify for free shipping.
Grab the Ultimate Chilli Sauce Challenge Set now and set the competition on fire!
