Dill Pickle Fermented Hot Sauce

How to Make Dill Pickle Fermented Hot Sauce

Your pantry needs this fiery zinger of a sauce

Abbe Lewis is a writer, editor, Emmy nominee and extreme nacho enthusiast with over a decade of experience in food and beverage media. Always on the move, Abbe can be found running long distances on the weekends to new restaurants or her favorite hangouts.

October 3, 2023

As part of ICE’s Culinary Arts career program, students are introduced to the art of food preservation, including fermentation, pickling, smoking and curing which is then (literally) showcased via a grand charcuterie buffet and hors d’oeuvres presentation.

During a recent charcuterie prep, ICE New York Lead Chef and Operations Manager Joshua Resnick taught his Module 4 students how to make a dill pickle hybrid hot sauce to pair with the duck pastrami Reuben.

“I wanted to make a sauce that works well with the classic deli sandwich, but in a different and elevated way,” he says. “The sauce has all of the elements that would go into a dill pickle, including dill, garlic, black peppercorns and red pepper flakes.”

Chef uses four different kinds of peppers for his recipe — poblano, serrano, jalapeño and bird’s-eye chiles — to give a depth of flavor and varying levels of spice.

For first-time fermenters, Chef Joshua heeds caution: do your research.

“Look up different techniques,” he encourages. “[And] look at different styles of hot sauces as well to think about what you’re looking to achieve in terms of final product. And, before moving forward, look at the types of peppers that you can find and get your hands on.”

Here’s how to make it at home.

Recipe