This Whole30-friendly homemade sriracha recipe is spicy, umami-packed, and so easy to make at home with real food ingredients!

An overhead shot of Whole30® Sriracha in a Pyrex measuring cup.

I’ve gotten tons of positive feedback about the Paleo Sriracha recipe I posted a while back (thank you!), and I love hearing that many of you have whipped up batches of the stuff to serve with…well, everything. After my recipe was picked up by websites like BuzzFeed and Grist, even non-Paleo eaters have been making their own junk-free versions of the famous Rooster Sauce. Yay!

BUT…what if you’re a sriracha lover who’s doing a Whole30®, and can’t have honey for a month? It’s your lucky day, ‘cause I have a solution:

Just like the original recipe, this’ll take just 20 minutes, and yield 2¼ cups of what Matthew Inman of The Oatmeal calls “a delicious blessing flavored with the incandescent glow of a thousand dying suns.”

Psst! For a limited time, you can buy my Whole30-friendly Nom Nom Paleo Sriracha at select Whole Foods Market Stores on the West Coast and Rocky Mountain region!

A closeup of a bottle of Nom Nom Paleo Sriracha and dishes that you can add it to.

Ready for the recipe?

Time to make Whole30 Sriracha!

Makes 2¼ cups

Ingredients:

  • 1½ pounds fresh red jalapeño peppers, stemmed, seeded, and roughly chopped
  • 8 garlic cloves, peeled and smashed
  • ⅓ cup apple cider vinegar
  • 3 tablespoons tomato paste
  • 1 large dried Medjool date, pitted
  • 2 tablespoons Red Boat fish sauce
  • 1½ teaspoons Diamond Crystal kosher salt

A closeup shot of red jalapeños in a colander.

Here’s what you do:

First things first: use gloves when handling the peppers to avoid burning your hands and eyes.

Someone putting on latex gloves before making Whole30® Sriracha

Cutting the stems off red jalapeño peppers while wearing latex gloves

I remove the seeds and most of the ribs from the jalapeño peppers to make a sauce of moderate heat, but if you want to breathe fire, feel free to keep the ribs and seeds, and/or use hotter peppers (like serranos or Lumbre peppers).

An overhead shot of a teaspoon of Red Boat fish sauce.

A closeup of all the ingredients for Whole30® Sriracha in a Vitamix.

Throw everything into a high-speed blender (like a Vitamix) or a turbocharged food processor. Purée until smooth.

Yes, a regular food processor will also work—but you’ll want to cut the peppers and garlic into smaller pieces, and blitz the ingredients longer. Otherwise, your sauce may end up on the chunky side.

Pour the purée into a medium saucepan and bring to a boil over high heat. As soon as it boils, reduce the heat to low and maintain a simmer for 5 to 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

A shot of a wooden spatula spooning out Whole30® Sriracha from a enameled cast iron sauce pan.

Cooking the sauce concentrates and deepens the flavors, and cuts the sharpness of the raw garlic. Once the foam subsides, the sauce should be a vibrant red color, and you shouldn’t be able to detect any raw vegetable smell.

Taste and adjust for seasoning if necessary, and then transfer the sriracha to a jar (or three) and allow the sauce to cool. You can keep it in the fridge for up to a week.

A shot of Whole30® Sriracha in a Pyrex measuring cup.

Eagle-eyed readers with Clark’s Nutcracker Bird-like total recall will notice that this recipe is essentially unchanged from my original one, with one critical exception: the substitution of the Medjool date for the honey.

A closeup of a dried Medjool date.

Under Whole30® rules, dates are A-OK when used to add a little hint of sweetness to sauces:

A screen grab from the Whole30 site that talks about how dates are compliant.

Unlike dates, honey is not on the Whole30-approved list during your month of super-clean eats because it’s all too easy to use it to “treat” yourself to Paleo-fied sweets. Keeping honey out of your kitchen during a Whole30 is a good way to keep from sabotaging your own hard-earned nutritional reset.

A closeup of three dried Medjool dates on a wooden cutting board.

(Of course, having a container of dates on the counter ain’t a great idea either if you’re going to be tempted to gorge on them. After all, sugar is sugar is sugar.)

To be honest, when Henry suggested that I try making a Whole30-friendly sriracha, I didn’t think it could possibly taste as good as my original version. But after making this new recipe numerous times and taste-testing it against both my honey-sweetened sauce and the store-bought variety, I have to tell you: this Whole30 sriracha tastes just as good.

The Sriracha will keep for about a week in the fridge in a sealed container. I love to freeze mine in these silicone ice cube trays because they’ll last for  few months and I can pop a cube out whenever I need some spicy goodness.

So go crazy, Whole30ers! (And tell me: what do you like to eat with sriracha? I love it squeezed on Paleo Egg Foo Young-ish!)

A Paleo Egg Foo Young patty with Whole30® Sriracha drizzled on it.


Looking for more recipe ideas? Head on over to my Recipe Index. You’ll also find exclusive recipes on my iPhone and iPad app, and in my cookbooks, Nom Nom Paleo: Food for Humans (Andrews McMeel Publishing 2013), Ready or Not! (Andrews McMeel Publishing 2017), and Nom Nom Paleo: Let’s Go! (Andrews McMeel Publishing 2021).


PRINTER-FRIENDLY RECIPE CARD

Whole30 Sriracha

5 from 5 votes
Prep Time10 minutes
Cook Time10 minutes
Total Time20 minutes
Servings 32 tablespoons
This Whole30-friendly homemade sriracha recipe is spicy, umami-packed, and so easy to make at home with real food ingredients!

Ingredients 
 

  • pounds fresh red jalapeño or Fresno peppers stemmed, seeded, and roughly chopped
  • 8 garlic cloves peeled and smashed
  • cup apple cider vinegar
  • 3 tablespoons tomato paste
  • 1 large dried Medjool date pitted
  • 2 tablespoons Red Boat fish sauce
  • teaspoons Diamond Crystal kosher salt
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Instructions 

  • First things first: use gloves when handling the peppers to avoid burning your hands and eyes. Remove the seeds and most of the ribs from the jalapeño peppers to make a sauce of moderate heat, but if you want to breathe fire, feel free to keep the ribs and seeds, and/or use hotter peppers (like serranos or Lumbre peppers).
  • Throw everything into a high-speed blender (like a Vitamix) or a turbocharged food processor. Purée until smooth. (Yes, a regular food processor will also work—but you’ll want to cut the peppers and garlic into smaller pieces, and blitz the ingredients longer. Otherwise, your sauce may end up on the chunky side.)
  • Pour the purée into a medium saucepan and bring to a boil over high heat. As soon as it boils, reduce the heat to low and maintain a simmer for 5 to 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
  • Cooking the sauce concentrates and deepens the flavors, and cuts the sharpness of the raw garlic. Once the foam subsides, the sauce should be a vibrant red color, and you shouldn’t be able to detect any raw vegetable smell.
  • Taste and adjust for seasoning if necessary, and then transfer the sriracha to a jar (or three) and allow the sauce to cool. You can keep it in the fridge for up to a week or freeze in ice cube molds for up to 4 months.

Video

Nutrition

Calories: 14kcal | Carbohydrates: 3g | Protein: 1g | Fat: 1g | Fiber: 1g

Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.

Like this? Leave a comment below!

About Michelle Tam

Hello! My name is Michelle Tam, and I love to eat. I think about food all the time. It borders on obsession. I’ve always loved the sights and smells of the kitchen. My mother was (and is) an excellent cook, and as a kid, I was her little shadow as she prepared supper each night. From her, I gained a deep, abiding love for magically transforming pantry items into mouth-watering family meals.

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6 Comments

  1. Why does this only last for one week in the fridge? Loved the sauce I bought at whole foods but they are out. Why does the bottle last longer than a week?

    1. The commercially made sriracha was made in a sterile kitchen and citric acid was added to make sure the sauce was acidic enough to last longer. For food safety reasons, I don’t tell people that they can keep their homemade sauce longer than a week.

  2. Two questions:
    1. Can this be made as a fermented sauce which will ensure long term keeping in the frig.
    2. Can this be frozen in small quantities?

  3. Made this yesterday and it’s absolutely AMAZING! I kept a little container in my fridge and froze the rest. It’s so flavourful, with just the right amount of heat. I used cayenne peppers because I couldn’t find red jalapeno locally – it’s AWESOME!

  4. 5 stars
    I wish that I could give even more stars! And I have gotten so many compliments on this Sriracha, that I learned how to can in it. Now I can gift it!