Our Favorite Hot Sauce Will Replace The Sriracha On Your Shelf

Huy Fong insists that its sriracha recipe has never and will never change. However, it does admit that the taste can vary from batch to batch — and after a brief suspension of production in 2022 and some drama with its pepper supplier, Redditors picked up on some major discrepancies. The color was orange, the heat was flattened, and the flavor was different. Sriracha lovers everywhere have been searching for a replacement ever since, and our taste testers think that they might've found it for you: the yellow sriracha from Three Mountains Brand.

In our ranking of the best grocery store hot sauce brands, Tasting Table's taste testers found that Three Mountains' yellow sriracha sauce had a solid medium-bodied and long-lasting heat. From the first bite on, that heat mellowed out into a familiar sweetness and eventually rounded out into flavors of garlic and vinegar. They're not the only ones who liken it as a Huy Fong replacement either. Though somewhat brighter and sweeter in flavor (and with an ever so slightly thinner consistency) sriracha fans are consistently pleased by Three Mountains' yellow sriracha.

Noting its neutral flavor, our taste testers couldn't help but consume this sauce repeatedly. Used in just as many creative ways as any other sriracha, customers put it on everything from fried rice to burgers, avocado toast to pizza, and ramen to tacos. It's not an exact swap, but if there's anything this sauce has over your Huy Fong sriracha, it's the peppers that it's made from.

There has been drama surrounding the peppers that Huy Fong uses for its sauce — although none of it has revolved around where they're geographically grown or the actual type of peppers used. Despite being an American take on a Thai-style product, Huy Fong currently uses red jalapeños grown in Mexico. But even before its 2022 hiatus, Huy Fong was getting the peppers from Underwood Ranches in California. There's nothing particularly wrong with that; obviously, people liked it regardless. But if there's any reason you should consider trying Three Mountains sriracha, it's for the peppers.

Three Mountains yellow sriracha contains just five ingredients: sugar, garlic, vinegar, salt, and yellow chilis. Yellow chilis are also known as Thai burapa chilies and are grown on a small farm in Sriracha, Thailand. It's actually where Three Mountains grows all of the chilies for its sriracha sauces, including the red, green, and the yellow varieties.

Aside from the fact that they're actually from Sriracha, Thailand, the yellow Thai burapa chilies used in Three Mountains sauce are much more complex than the red jalapeños found in Huy Fong's version — adding to its sweet and garlicky flavor with a Scoville scale rating just between a cayenne pepper and a habanero. In the past, these specialty peppers made this sauce a rare commodity. Fortunately, today you can find it easily via online retailers — which mean's that for just around $4, it'll be delivered directly to your door.