Sriracha vs Tabasco: how the two hot sauces differ and what to use them for

Tabasco is a thin, sharp sauce made from tabasco peppers, vinegar and salt in Louisiana, USA. Sriracha is a thick chilli sauce with garlic and sugar, named after the town of Si Racha in Thailand. Both are hot, but they taste very different: you shake Tabasco on drop by drop for heat and acidity, and you squeeze sriracha like ketchup.

In Poland both are sold under their own names. On a shelf you will see "sos Tabasco" and "sos sriracha" or "sos chilli sriracha"; the general Polish term for hot sauces is "ostre sosy".

What is Tabasco?

Tabasco sauce is a brand made since the 19th century by the McIlhenny family company on Avery Island in Louisiana. The classic red sauce has only three ingredients: peppers of the tabasco variety, distilled vinegar and salt. The mashed peppers are aged with salt in barrels, then mixed with vinegar and strained.

The taste is mainly sour and hot, with a light fermented note. The sauce is as thin as water, so the bottle has a narrow neck and you use it in drops. A few drops are enough for a bowl of soup.

Tabasco goes well with:

• scrambled and fried eggs,
• a Bloody Mary,
• oysters, seafood and fish,
• pizza, soups, meat sauces and marinades.

The brand also makes other flavours, such as the thicker and milder Sweet & Spicy, for grilled food and chicken.

What is sriracha?

Sriracha is a sauce of red chilli, garlic, sugar, vinegar and salt. It comes from Thailand. In Europe most people know it from the bottles with a green cap and from Thai brands such as Flying Goose. It is as thick as ketchup and tastes hot, slightly sweet and clearly of garlic.

Add sriracha to pho and ramen, wok-fried noodles, fried rice, eggs, burgers and sandwiches. Mixed with mayonnaise it becomes sriracha mayo, which you can also buy ready-made.

Sriracha vs Tabasco at a glance

Both sauces are moderate in heat next to very hot habanero sauces. Classic Tabasco is usually a little hotter than sriracha, but you use much less of it.

Other hot sauces and pastes worth knowing

• Sambal oelek. An Indonesian paste of crushed chillies, salt and vinegar, with no garlic or sugar. Use it as a base for sauces and marinades. Its relative sambal badjak is sweeter and fried.
• Gochujang. A thick Korean paste of chilli, glutinous rice and fermented soya beans. It is sweet, hot and a little salty, and it is the base of many Korean sauces.
• Indian-style heat. Indian cooking gets its heat more often from fresh and dried chillies than from a bottled sauce. We describe the main types in Kashmiri and bird's eye chillies.

If you like hot noodles, read also what buldak noodles are.

Where to buy Tabasco and sriracha in Poland

Little India lists the Tabasco range on its Tabasco brand page, including the classic Tabasco Pepper Sauce 60 ml and the Tabasco Sweet & Spicy 256 ml. For sriracha, look for the Flying Goose sriracha chilli sauce 455 ml. Little India has shops in Warsaw, Kraków, Wrocław and Gdańsk and ships orders across Poland.