Sriracha Substitute: 4 Alternatives to Sriracha

Sriracha hot sauce is a paste of chili peppers (most commonly red jalapeño peppers), distilled white vinegar, sugar, and salt. It is a thick, gluten-free sauce that is more of a chili paste than a liquid hot sauce.

Like other hot sauces at the grocery store, sriracha sauce pairs well with various cuisines—such as Thai, Korean, Indonesian, Indian, and Mexican cuisines. Sriracha has a Scoville rating of 1,000–2,500 units. While traditionally made with red jalapeño peppers, you can use other chiles like Fresno chiles or red Thai chilies in your homemade version.

As a chili garlic sauce, sriracha adds a spicy flavor profile to many dishes. Here are three ways home cooks use sriracha hot sauce:

1. 1. Condiment: Combine sriracha with ketchup to make a spicy ketchup, or make a sriracha mayo by mixing sriracha with mayonnaise. Use either as a dipping sauce for vegetables or sweet potato fries, or a spread on sandwiches and burgers.
2. 2. Marinade: Add sriracha to soy sauce, fish sauce, sesame oil, lime or lemon juice, and a sweetener like brown sugar to make a marinade for fish, beef, or tofu. It adds a spicy flavor profile without an overpowering heat level.
3. 3. Sauce: Use sriracha in a stir fry sauce, sweet chili sauce, enchilada sauce, or topping sauce for dishes like tacos. Mix with other seasonings like cayenne pepper, garlic powder, chili powder, paprika, and apple cider vinegar for various flavors for different cuisines.

The best sriracha substitutes deliver robust flavor with added spice. If you’re out of the hot sauce or don’t have the ingredients to make homemade sriracha sauce, here are a few of the best substitutes:

1. 1. Harissa: Sriracha uses red jalapeños, while harissa uses roasted red peppers and other pepper varieties—such as Tunisian baklouti peppers or serrano peppers. Harissa has varying levels of heat, and some are spicier than others, depending on the peppers.
2. 2. Gochujang: Another fermented hot sauce, gochujang is a Korean chili paste made from red pepper flakes (gochugaru), fermented soybean powder, barley malt powder, glutinous rice powder, rice syrup, and salt. While the fermentation process for gochujang is similar to sriracha, gochujang is much thicker and a little stickier.
3. 3. Piri-piri sauce: Also known as peri-peri sauce, this sauce is a purée of African piri-piri peppers, which are 225,000 Scoville Heat Units (SHU)—much higher on the Scoville scale than red jalapeño peppers (10,000 SHU) or red serrano peppers (23,000 SHU). Popular in Portuguese cuisine, this sauce is a great substitute for sriracha, but it is spicier.
4. 4. Sambal oelek: Use this traditional Indonesian chili sauce as a one-for-one substitute for sriracha. This hot sauce includes shrimp paste, ginger, scallion, and palm sugar and adds hot pepper flavor to soups, stews, sauces, and more.