All 7 Cholula Hot Sauce Flavors, Ranked

How do you add spice to your favorite foods? Perhaps you pack in the heat by way of spices like cayenne pepper or red pepper flakes, or maybe you opt for incorporating the spice after the cooking process is done by way of hot sauce. There's certainly no shortage of hot sauce options out there, but if you're someone who likes the classics, then there's a good chance that you've either drizzled Cholula hot sauce onto your food at a restaurant, or perhaps you even keep your pantry stocked with a bottle or two. This hot sauce brand, which was named after the Mexican city of Cholula, has been around for over 100 years, and it's most distinct thanks to its assortment of spicy flavors and easily identifiable wooden caps.

Much like any hot sauce brand that boasts several flavors, Cholula is perhaps best known for its original flavor, which includes staple ingredients like red peppers, salt, water, vinegar, and spices. That said, Cholula does indeed have a whole lineup of flavors, and as a lifelong hot sauce fan and aficionado, I've put each Cholula hot sauce flavor to the test to determine which is the best of the best. When sampling each sauce, I looked for flavors that were balanced, packed just the right amount of heat, perhaps offered up something unique or complex, and most importantly of all, tasted good.

If a brand that has an ever-popular red hot sauce, there's a good chance that there's an almost-as-popular green hot sauce riding on its coat-tails — and Cholula is no exception. The brand's signature green sauce, simply called green pepper sauce, boasts the inclusion of both jalapeño and poblano peppers in its recipe. This dynamic duo offers spice and that distinct green hue. As a fan of both of these peppers, I figured this must be one tasty hot sauce. Maybe it offers a bright or more zingy flavor than a regular hot sauce, and to be fair, my assumption was somewhat right.

I would argue that Cholula's green pepper hot sauce does offer some bright, perhaps even vaguely floral notes, but everything gets drowned out by the sheer saltiness of the sauce itself. Nearly every hot sauce is going to have salt on the ingredients list — all of the sauces on this list certainly do — but a quick peek at the nutrition facts for this sauce proved that it had the highest level of sodium, coming in at 190 milligrams per serving. (For context, the Cholula sauce with the least amount of sodium is the Chipotle sauce, which has 85 milligrams per serving). While I wanted to enjoy the green pepper flavors that this sauce had to offer, I couldn't get past the saltiness, which was just too overbearing to enjoy. 

Tequila is no stranger to Mexican cuisine, and, like hot sauce itself, one might argue that no taco dinner is complete without it. Though most people are likely enjoying tequila with their meals by way of a margarita, why not just include it in hot sauce itself, which you're probably already putting on tacos anyway? This seems to have been Cholula's line of thought with its tequila and lime reserve hot sauce. This super bold sauce offers up a substantially boozy flavor that almost makes you forget about any spicy elements.

Before trying this hot sauce, I was skeptical on just how much tequila flavor could shine through, and after trying it, I almost wished that the tequila wasn't at the forefront. There's no denying that tequila lovers are going to really enjoy this hot sauce, and I didn't hate it by any means, but I did find the tequila flavor to be extremely overpowering. There really wasn't much lime flavor at play, nor was there really a whole lot of spice — it was just tequila through and through. It's great for those who find that a margarita with dinner just isn't enough, but not so good for those who don't want their tacos (or chips, or quesadillas, or burritos) to be drowned out by tequila.

As someone who falls into the party that believes a squeeze of lime makes (nearly) any food a little better, I was perplexed to find that Cholula's chili lime hot sauce didn't quite tickle my fancy. I figured this sauce would taste like classic hot sauce — spicy, vinegary, peppery, salty — with a citrusy, zesty kick, and to be fair, this proved to be partially true. The issue is that it was kind of an opposite scenario, where the zesty, citrusy flavor was incredibly overpowering instead of adding just a kick. The citrus overpowered the other classic flavors of the hot sauce itself, and not in a good way.

If you've ever tried the limón flavor in Lay's potato chips lineup, then you can imagine what this hot sauce tastes like. And, you can imagine why I find this sauce to be polarizing. On one hand, I appreciate the strong, strangely distinct flavor that both limón Lay's and this Cholula hot sauce have to offer, but on the other hand, I could never quite pinpoint whether or not I truly like it. Since I kept teetering back and forth on liking this hot sauce flavor and not liking it, I couldn't in good faith rank it too high, but I also couldn't give it the lowest slot because it definitely intrigued me (and knocked my socks off by way of sheer zestiness). 

I often find that when a certain brand has a whole lineup of hot sauce flavors, the original is typically the best, or at least very close to the best. Surprisingly, however, I didn't find this to be the case with Cholula's original hot sauce flavor, and compared to the three sauces that rank above this one, I overall found this flavor to be a bit ... lackluster? Bland? Boring? It's not a bad sauce by any means, and it's classic and ubiquitous for a reason, but with such a stacked lineup, this one really just didn't stand out above many of the others.

To highlight the positives of this hot sauce, it did have a nice, balanced, spicy flavor profile. A little bit peppery, a little bit vinegary, and a little bit salty, this original hot sauce is definitely a versatile one; it's as useful for Mexican cuisine as it might be for something like ramen or poutine. Though it's far from a bad hot sauce, the biggest gripe I have with this flavor is that it's just a bit lackluster, especially when you're comparing it to a whole other slew of flavors. The good news is that if this is your tried and true sauce, you really can't go wrong with it. The bad news is that you might be missing out on something a little bit better if you're stuck on this sauce and refuse to try anything else.

Chipotle hot sauces are often unique in a lineup thanks to their distinct smoky flavor, and Cholula's chipotle hot sauce followed suit. Smoky, spicy, and perhaps even a little bit sweet, this hot sauce boasts all of the flavors that one might look for in a hot sauce. Obviously, if you really don't like smoky flavor, then this is one to avoid, but if you're all about it, then you really can't go wrong with this option.

My only real complaint about this chipotle hot sauce is that I almost wish it leaned into the smokiness even more. There's no denying that this flavor profile is at play, but if anything, the smokiness is a little bit subdued and simply could be stronger. Now, small gripe aside, this is a balanced hot sauce overall, and I could see some people really appreciating the fact that the smokiness in this hot sauce isn't incredibly overbearing. So, since the sauce tastes good, does boast a nice smoky flavor, and is all-around balanced, it made for an easy choice to break into the top three on this list.

With my love of hot sauce in mind, I also dabbled in tasting and ranking Tabasco hot sauces and, much to my disappointment, found the brand's resident garlic-infused sauce to be disappointing. Tabasco's garlic hot sauce ranked pretty low because it lacked a strong garlic flavor and generally tasted watered-down and lackluster. Though, Cholula's chili garlic sauce has a much-deserved second place ranking on this list, proving that not all hope is lost for garlic-infused hot sauces out there.

The biggest reason why this sauce is such a success comes down to a small but mighty ingredient — that ingredient, of course, is garlic. Indeed, it doesn't necessarily take much to impress me when it comes to garlic hot sauces, and in fact, all I'm really looking for is that the sauce is both spicy and actually tastes like garlic. Cholula's chili garlic sauce was very successful on both fronts. It offered up a tantalizingly spicy flavor profile with just the right hit of pungent garlic to keep things interesting and, well, garlicky. Sure, if you don't like garlic or could take it or leave it, then maybe this isn't the sauce for you. But for those garlic lovers out there, you won't be disappointed by this delightfully garlicky sauce.

If there's one flavor profile that I enjoy in hot sauce even more than salt, citrus, smokiness, and even garlic, it's sweetness. There's just nothing better than taking a bite of something and getting hit with an alluring balance of both hot and sweetness. Cholula's sweet habanero hot sauce provides these flavor profiles perfectly. 

Aside from the delicate balance of spice and sweetness that this sauce pulls off so well, I also appreciated the fact that this habanero-based sauce wasn't off the rails in terms of spice. Habanero hot sauces do tend to be spicier than those made with most other types of peppers, and to be fair, I would argue that this sauce is the spiciest in Cholula's lineup. But this extra spice is so worth it thanks to the added sweetness — which honestly reminded me a lot of pineapple (and made me realize just how good this sauce would be on a dish that includes the fruit). This sauce would also be a great topper for those dishes that aren't pineapple-centric, like classic ground beef street tacos, where it would add just the right balance of flavor to enhance the savoriness of the dish.

There are a couple of important factors that helped me determine this ranking of Cholula's hot sauces. For starters, I sampled each hot sauce by way of an unsalted tortilla chip; while I don't typically pair tortilla chips with just hot sauce, I found the humble chip to be a nice, neutral vessel so I could adequately get a taste for each sauce. Also, tortilla chips are in the arena of foods that hot sauce might be paired with, so the chips served their purpose well without interfering with the important flavors, aka those from the hot sauce itself.

While the ranking came down to how much I enjoyed each hot sauce, I found that I favored those that struck a nice balance of flavor. None of the sauces on this list were too spicy, so I didn't have to worry about that, though I did find one sauce — the green pepper sauce — to be far too salty, hence why it was ranked last. By contrast, the sweet habanero sauce came in first place, and it proved to have a really nice balance of flavors. Middle-ground sauces were determined by those that perhaps had an okay flavor balance, but were a bit lackluster or could have had even stronger flavor, like the original hot sauce.