ISO Huy Fong Sriracha Replacement

July 10, 2023 11:37 AM

What's a good replacement for Huy Fong Sriracha? As the shortage drags on, I'm looking for a good alternative (and ideally a good* place to order from online).

My preference would be something that tastes similar, but I don't expect it to be exact. I have plenty of other hot sauces, but I'm looking for something else that fits the HFS niche: vinegary, moderately spicy, good on lots of things.

* Preferably not Amazon, Walmart, Target, etc.

posted by Cogito to Food & Drink (11 answers total)

Valentina hot sauce, the black bottle. Of a grade with classic Sriracha spiciness-wise, different and somewhat tangier flavor which I prefer. The typical yellow-labelled bottle is a bit milder (and also good) but both of them hit that slightly-vinegary, general-purpose condiment utility. It's good.
posted by mhoye at 12:03 PM on July 10, 2023 [1 favorite]

If you can find them at an Asian grocery, Thai brands Polar Sriracha Chili Sauce or Shark Chili Sauce IMO are better than Huy Fong. Of the two, Polar is my favourite as the Shark is a bit thinner.
posted by Ashwagandha at 12:08 PM on July 10, 2023 [5 favorites]

Yellowbird sells theirs online directly. Could you get the Trader Joe's version delivered through Instacart or similar?
posted by mcgsa at 12:17 PM on July 10, 2023

Yellowbird blue Agave Sriracha has popped up at my local grocery stores and is the best replacement we've found so far, and it looks like you can order from them directly-- although that may be in larger quantities than you want to commit to just yet.

We have not tried but have had had the Shark chili recommended to us.

Have tried and did not like the lee Kum kee and the ninja squirrel one. They both seemed kinda chemically to me. It's been years since I tried either though
posted by ghost phoneme at 12:25 PM on July 10, 2023 [1 favorite]

You may be wanting to buy a product, and there are lots of good ones out there. However, making it at home is pretty easy, and is one of the safer fermentation products to start out with.

Finding red jalapeños is hard (see shortage) but fresnos are easier to find, and honestly, this exactly recipe is really, really good made with hatch peppers (looks very not red though). I've used a mixture of thai bird chilies and red bell peppers (to moderate the heat of the bird chilies) to get similar results to sriracha too.
posted by furnace.heart at 12:42 PM on July 10, 2023 [3 favorites]

Came to recommend Yellowbird. Get one of their sample packs and try them all, they're all a bit different and I like all of them for different things.
posted by RustyBrooks at 5:41 PM on July 10, 2023

Sriraja Panich is the original sriracha sauce from Thailand. It's really good.
I used to order it from Amazon, but I (surprisingly) found it at my local WalMart store a month ago or so, and it's much cheaper at WalMart.
posted by alex1965 at 8:56 PM on July 10, 2023

I have a bottle of Sky Valley in the kitchen and while it will do in a pinch, I am not crazy about it. Kenji suggests Polar.
posted by mmascolino at 6:20 AM on July 11, 2023

We have both the Huy Fong, and the Shark Brand Sriracha in our kitchen. The Shark is a little sweeter (to us, at least), and tends to get used more in Thai-style foods. We jokingly call the Huy Fong "hipster ketchup" and it gets used mostly as such. Hot dogs, sandwiches, etc. If we had to keep just one, it'd be the Shark.
posted by xedrik at 4:42 PM on July 11, 2023

Trader Joe's and ALDI have house brand stuff that tastes pretty similar.

My recent purchase has been Tabasco Sriracha. It tastes different, but I like it better.
posted by indianbadger1 at 12:22 PM on July 12, 2023

I've found Humble House's Guajillo & Red Jalapeno Hot Sauce to be a delicious replacement for Sriracha, after having tried a few disappointing ones that called themselves Sriracha. We have it at our local grocery (HEB) but it looks like you can order it online as well.
posted by slappy_pinchbottom at 1:02 PM on July 13, 2023