The short answer
Sriracha is a hot, tangy and slightly sweet sauce made from red chilies, garlic, vinegar, sugar and salt. It takes its name from the town of Si Racha in Thailand. The best-known version in the world today is the green-capped bottle with the rooster, made in California since 1980: Huy Fong Sriracha. Its heat is around 2,200–2,500 Scoville, which is medium, about as hot as a jalapeño.
Where does sriracha come from?
Sriracha is a Thai sauce. In Si Racha it was eaten with seafood; across East and Southeast Asia it sat on restaurant tables the way chili paste sits next to kebabs in Turkey. The man who took it to America was David Tran, a refugee from Vietnam of Chinese descent. In 1980 he founded Huy Fong Foods in Los Angeles, naming it after the ship that carried him out of Vietnam. The rooster on the bottle comes from the year he was born, a Year of the Rooster. The story goes that before the company took off, he made a living selling the sauce from the back of his car.
America’s first hot sauce brand, Tabasco, had been founded in Louisiana in 1868. Tran’s sauce grew quietly, never changing its recipe, until it caught America’s attention in the mid-2000s; it took people twenty years to understand what he had made.
What’s in sriracha?
According to Huy Fong’s label: red chilies (jalapeño), sugar, salt, garlic, distilled vinegar, potassium sorbate, sodium bisulfite and xanthan gum. There’s no added coloring, so depending on how ripe the peppers are, one batch can be a deeper red and another a paler one.
How hot is sriracha? The Scoville scale
It all began in 1912 with the “Scoville Organoleptic Test” devised by Wilbur Scoville, an American working for the pharmaceutical company Parke-Davis. He measured the effect of capsaicin, the compound that makes chilies hot, and created the Scoville scale we still use today, running from sweet all the way to what you might call poison.
| Pepper or sauce | Scoville (SHU) |
|---|---|
| Bell pepper | 0 |
| Huy Fong Sriracha | ~2,200–2,500 |
| Tabasco | 2,000–5,000 |
| Jalapeño | 2,500–8,000 |
| Aleppo pepper | ~10,000 |
| Cayenne | 30,000–50,000 |
| Thai (bird’s eye) chili | 50,000–100,000 |
| Habanero | 100,000–350,000 |
| Ghost pepper | 1,000,000+ |
| Carolina Reaper | 2,200,000+ |
| Pepper X | 2,693,000+ |
| Pure capsaicin | 16,000,000 |
Why did the world fall for sriracha?
I’d sum it up as the honesty of the palate meeting the magic of pop culture. In December 2009, Bon Appétit crowned it by naming sriracha its Ingredient of the Year for 2010.
So what makes it special? It’s simple, balanced and harmonious, and whatever you put it on, it wakes up every receptor on your tongue: the heat of the chili, the garlic, the appetite-boosting sugar. I’ll say it without hesitation: Ketchup is dead, long live Sriracha!
How to use sriracha
You can guess it works beautifully with East Asian food and meat. A few more ideas:
- In noodles, pho, ramen and fried rice
- On eggs: fried, scrambled, in an omelet or menemen
- On burgers: mix it with mayonnaise for sriracha mayo
- On grilled meat and chicken, or in a marinade
- In cocktails: a Bloody Mary or a strawberry margarita
- Mixed with salt as sriracha salt
- On chips and fries
In cocktails,
mixed with salt,
on chips,
and of course in a Bloody Mary.
Can you buy sriracha in Turkey?
The original Huy Fong still isn’t sold in Turkey. Things are messy in the US too: as of 2026, Huy Fong’s legal fight with its former jalapeño grower is still going on, production has stopped several times, and in my view the old empire is close to collapse. Other brands, Tabasco among them, saw the gap and launched their own srirachas. The sriracha you find in Turkish supermarkets comes from these brands; it isn’t a perfect match for Huy Fong, but it gives you the idea. Better still, make it at home with the recipe below.
Homemade sriracha recipe
A quick copy of the original, minus the fermentation. All you need is a blender, a sieve and an hour. The video (in Turkish) was made for Bosch Home Türkiye’s #EnGüzeliEvde series.
Recipe
Homemade Sriracha (Quick Hot Sauce)
- Prep60 min
Ingredients
- 400 g red chilies (fleshy, like jalapeño or Fresno)
- 50 g garlic
- 25 g salt
- 50 g vinegar
- 25 g sugar
Equipment
Blender, fine sieve, small saucepan, sterilized glass bottle or jar
Method
- Trim the stems off the chilies; put the chilies, peeled garlic and salt in the blender.
- Blend on the lowest speed first, then on the highest, until smooth and creamy; push the sides down toward the blades with a spatula as you go.
- Pass the mixture through a fine sieve; the skins and seeds stay behind (you can turn them into chili powder).
- Add the vinegar and sugar to the strained sauce. Warm it over the lowest heat until small bubbles appear; don’t boil it, and skim off any foam.
- Once the sugar has dissolved, pour into sterilized bottles or jars; refrigerate once cool.
Notes
- The original sriracha is fermented; this is a quick, unfermented copy.
- There are no preservatives, but with plenty of salt and vinegar it keeps for 6–8 months in the fridge in my experience. Sterilize your containers.
The factory smell lawsuit and the shortage years
In October 2013 the city of Irwindale sued Huy Fong, saying the chili smell from the factory was making life hard for nearby residents. David Tran made changes, the suit was dropped in May 2014, and the episode only made the brand more famous. In 2022 a drought in Mexico hit the chili harvest and production stopped; by 2023 the shelves were empty. In 2024 production stopped again for a few months because the peppers came in too green.
Frequently asked questions
What does sriracha mean?
It’s the name of the town of Si Racha in Thailand; the sauce is named after it.
How do you pronounce sriracha?
The common pronunciation is “see-RAH-cha”.
Is sriracha very hot?
No, it’s medium: 2,200–2,500 Scoville, around jalapeño level.
What’s the difference between sriracha and Tabasco?
Tabasco is vinegar-forward, thin and sour; sriracha is garlicky, sweeter and thick.
What’s in sriracha?
Chilies, sugar, salt, garlic, vinegar and preservatives.
And one from me to you.
