The Hot Sauce Ina Garten Swears By In Her Tuna Wasabi Rolls

Ina Garten's scrumptious tuna wasabi rolls (chunks of fresh tuna, creamy avocado, and red onion stuffed into a toasted sub) are incredible. However, the true star of this scrumptious sandwich recipe is the spicy soy sauce and lime vinaigrette Garten coats the tuna with before messily piling it into her rolls. The classic hot sauce she swears by to lend this marinade a fiery, vinegary kick? It has to be Tabasco.

Tabasco sauce is a simple three ingredient mixture of peppers, distilled vinegar, and salt. While the slow aging process of this condiment lends it a complex flavor and tingly heat, it doesn't feature the key aromatics present in Asian style hot sauces, such as sriracha or sweet chili sauce. Both of these spicy condiments include lots of minced garlic (and sugar) in their recipes, which gives them a stronger aroma and a sweetness that can easily overpower the delicate flavor of fresh tuna. 

Using tabasco allows Garten to get heaps of spicy fierceness into the fish and champion classic Asian flavors, like soy sauce, without the additional pungency of the fragrant garlic that can mask tuna's characteristic subtlety. Singling out the heat also gives her greater control over customizing the other elements in her vinaigrette to create a personalized blend — the extra warmth comes from hot wasabi powder, a salty twang from a dash of soy, freshness and acidity from fresh lime juice, and aroma from the oils in the zest.

Tabasco is highly concentrated, which means even a couple of splashes is plenty to lend a dish some spirited punch and vinegary brightness. Ina Garten adds only five drops of Tabasco into her soy and lime vinaigrette, which imbues it with an abundance of heat without loosening the perfect consistency of the sauce. This mouth-puckering elixir is just the right viscosity to coat the chunks of tuna fish and avocado without leaving behind any lip-smacking leftovers in the bowl. Using a richer Asian style hot sauce or condiment, such as gochujang, or one that includes a thickening agent like xanthan gum, would negatively affect the consistency of the sauce and turn it into a clingy coating rather than a light, citrusy marinade.

Of course, the final benefit of using Tabasco, one of the best hot sauce brands stocked in grocery stores, is that diners can add a splash more onto their tuna roll if desired. In fact, Tabasco sauce was originally meant to be sprinkled on food because of its highly intense flavor, which is why even now it's sold with a fitment on the top so it can be dispensed by the drop rather than poured out like other popular hot sauces.