Best American-Made Hot Sauce & BBQ Sauce: Louisiana Pepper Sauce, Sriracha and Barbecue Sauce Made in the USA

Louisiana-style hot sauce is aged peppers, vinegar and salt, and three of the oldest makers still bottle it in Louisiana.

TABASCO has been made on Avery Island, a salt dome in the bayou south of New Iberia, since Edmund McIlhenny began selling it in 1868, and the McIlhenny family still runs the company. Peppers are mashed with Avery Island salt and aged in white oak barrels before being blended with vinegar and bottled. Not every pepper grows on the island: to meet demand, TABASCO peppers are now grown in Central and South America from Avery Island seed, and the mash is shipped back for aging. Its product pages name Avery Island for Original Red and Scorpion; the flavored sauces, Sriracha and Sweet Chili state no production site.

Crystal is made by Baumer Foods, which Alvin Baumer bought in 1923. Hurricane Katrina destroyed its New Orleans plant in 2005, and the company rebuilt in Reserve, Louisiana, where it says manufacturing and distribution are all under one roof. It makes more than 4.5 million gallons a year there, including the wing sauces, steak sauce and Worcestershire. Crystal does not say where its cayenne is grown.

Cajun Chef has made sauces in St. Martinville, Louisiana since 1958, and says its red hot sauce uses only fresh Louisiana cayenne. Its green sauce uses immature Louisiana cayenne. Its own store also sells an imported peperoncini, so read the label on anything beyond the hot sauces.

Frank's RedHot dates to 1920 and was the sauce on the first Buffalo wings at the Anchor Bar in 1964. The sauce is produced in Springfield, Missouri. McCormick, its owner since 2017, says it makes its North American products in the US and Canada and buys spices where they grow, and it does not name the plant for each bottle. Read the back label on the XTRA Hot, Buffalo Wing and Sweet Chili sauces for the packer's address.

Huy Fong Foods makes its Sriracha, Chili Garlic Sauce and Sambal Oelek at one factory at 4800 Azusa Canyon Road in Irwindale, California, opened in 2010. David Tran founded the company in Los Angeles in 1980 and named it after the freighter that carried him out of Vietnam. For 28 years most of its peppers came from Underwood Ranches in Ventura County; that partnership ended in 2016, and CNBC reported in 2023 that Huy Fong now buys peppers from farms in California, New Mexico and Mexico. The sauce is made in California, but the chilies in a bottle may not be.

Tabanero is open about its sourcing. Its FAQ says "Everything is made at our SQF-certified facility in Florida," in Delray Beach, and that it imports its habanero mash from Tabasco, Mexico. Its ingredient chart lists the habaneros, tomatoes, garlic and lime as Mexican and the carrots, salt and vinegar as American. These are Florida-made sauces built partly on imported ingredients.

TorchBearer Sauces made its first batch in September 2004 and cooks every sauce in its own kitchen at 1045 Columbus Ave in Lemoyne, Pennsylvania, where its kettle has grown from 40 gallons to 300 and it now runs its own bottling line. The homepage reads "MADE IN USA" and "BORN IN PENNSYLVANIA." Zombie Apocalypse, Son of Zombie wing sauce, Garlic Reaper and Slaughterhouse all come from that kitchen, and TorchBearer has made sauces for the Hot Ones show.

Queen Majesty has bottled its sauces in Long Island City, Queens since 2013, in its kitchen on Borden Ave. Its founder Erica describes the company as small-batch, woman-owned and self-funded. The bottled line includes Scotch Bonnet and Ginger, Red Habanero and Black Coffee, and Jalapeño Tequila and Lime. Its Ancho Habanero powder is the one product its site does not place.

Spicin Foods began making hot sauce in 1999 in a former car dealership in Kansas City, Kansas and now develops, tests, produces and bottles all its products in a 60,000-square-foot plant at 111 SW Blvd. Its brands include Da'Bomb, the extreme sauces led by Ground Zero at a listed 321,900 Scoville units, and Pain Is Good, whose numbered batches include a Louisiana Style sauce and a Jamaican Style sauce, plus salsas and a Carolina Reaper BBQ sauce. Spicin says it buys ingredients locally "whenever we can" and does not say where its peppers and pepper extracts are grown.

Country Bob's is the plainest case. "Country Bob" Edson started the business in 1968 with the All Purpose Sauce, still its flagship, and the third generation of his family now runs it. The company says it still bottles and ships its sauces and seasonings in its hometown of Centralia, Illinois. The line is short: the All Purpose Sauce in 13 oz and 23 oz family-size bottles, an original barbecue sauce, a marinade and a few seasonings.

Croix Valley Foods began with a steak sauce Damon Holter made at a family steakhouse in Northern Wisconsin. He and Lu Holter, both barbecue and steak competitors, grew the company from a 100-square-foot space into a 20,000-square-foot plant on Jack Breault Drive in Hudson, Wisconsin, which also co-packs for other brands. Its product pages tie its sauces to Hudson, and we found no Croix Valley product made anywhere else. We list the Original Beef and Steak Sauce, the Kansas City Style sauce and two rubs.

Bone Suckin' Sauce comes from a recipe Phil Ford developed in 1987, trying to copy his mother's western North Carolina-style sauce. The Ford family has sold it since 1992 from the NC State Farmers Market in Raleigh. It does not run its own plant: its history says the sauce is made from the family recipe by a North Carolina co-packer it does not name. The site does not say separately where each rub, mustard or wing sauce is made.

The two barbecue sauces most people reach for in a grocery store make no origin statement, so they are listed here with that caveat rather than as verified picks.

Sweet Baby Ray's started in Chicago, where Larry Raymond entered his family's sweet and tangy recipe in the 1985 Mike Royko Rib-off and beat nearly 700 entrants. Ken's Foods, the family-owned dressing and sauce maker based in Marlborough, Massachusetts, now owns it. Ken's says it runs four manufacturing plants and lists plant jobs in Las Vegas, Nevada, Lebanon, Indiana and McDonough, Georgia, but Sweet Baby Ray's own site says only that its products are made in facilities with stringent programs. We found nothing saying any Sweet Baby Ray's sauce is made abroad.

Stubb's traces back to the barbecue restaurant C.B. "Stubb" Stubblefield opened in Lubbock, Texas in 1968. McCormick bought the brand in 2015, and its old website now redirects to a McCormick brand page that tells the Texas story but states no manufacturing location or country of origin. Stubb's is a Texas brand by history; where its sauces, marinades and rubs are bottled today is not published.

If you want a stated US origin, the sauces in the sections above say where they are made. For these two, read the back label.

Separate two questions: where the sauce was made and where the peppers grew. Most American hot sauce makers bottle here and buy peppers on a wider market. TABASCO grows peppers in Central and South America, Huy Fong buys some from Mexico and Tabanero imports its habanero mash. Cajun Chef and its Louisiana cayenne are the exception on this list. A sauce made in the USA is not necessarily a sauce of American peppers.

Pick a style by what you cook. A thin Louisiana sauce of aged peppers, vinegar and salt, such as TABASCO, Crystal or Cajun Chef, adds acid and moderate heat to eggs, beans, gumbo and fried food. Cayenne sauces like Frank's are the base for Buffalo wings when mixed with butter. Sriracha and chili garlic sauce are thicker and sweeter, built on fresh red chilies and garlic. Extreme sauces such as Da'Bomb use pepper extract and are meant by the drop, not the spoonful.

For barbecue sauce, the regional styles differ more than the brands. Kansas City style is thick, sweet and tomato-based. Carolina sauces run thinner and sharper with vinegar or mustard. Brush a sweet sauce on near the end of cooking, because sugar burns over direct heat.

A vinegar-based pepper sauce keeps in the cupboard after opening. Sauces built on fruit, garlic, oil or tomato last longer in the refrigerator once opened.