Nashville Hot Sauce Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What is Nashville hot sauce made of? ›

Nashville hot sauce is a regional hot sauce made with honey, cayenne pepper, smoked paprika and brown sugar. This irresistible Tennessee classic hot sauce is commonly served on fried chicken to make Nashville hot chicken.

The Buffalo sauce combines hot sauce (often cayenne pepper-based) with melted butter, vinegar, and garlic. It's tangy, spicy, and buttery. With Nashville Hot Chicken sauce, the paste blends cayenne pepper, brown sugar, garlic, and spices mixed with oil. It delivers a fiery, complex heat with a touch of sweetness.

Nashville chicken's signature heat comes from a spice blend that usually includes cayenne pepper, paprika, garlic powder, onion powder, and other secret ingredients. The specific combination and proportions of these spices contribute to the distinctive flavor that defines Nashville hot chicken.

The main differences lie in how the poultry is seasoned, sauced, and served. Buffalo chicken is typically less spicy and a little tangier, while Nashville hot chicken turns up the heat (as you can guess from its name) and balances it out with a touch of sweetness.

Buffalo Sauce Is Tangy, While Nashville Is Sweet

This mix of ingredients gives it its signature tangy yet rich taste. Nashville hot chicken is a little more complex. Instead of being a finishing sauce to coat chicken, it's typically a paste used as a marinade before the chicken is cooked.

Nashville Hot Sauce

Add the cayenne, garlic powder, salt, black pepper, smoked paprika, brown sugar, and honey to the saucepan with the melted butter. Whisk the ingredients to combine and heat the mixture over medium heat for one minute or until the brown sugar has somewhat dissolved.

Those are pretty much where the similarities end because not only do the two involve wildly different taste profiles and wildly disparate origin stories, but they're not even used the same way; Buffalo sauce is more of a finishing sauce, while Nashville hot is often a marinade.

Nashville hot chicken is quite spicy. Not only is the chicken marinated in hot sauce, but it's also coated in a cayenne pepper sauce. However, the cayenne pepper sauce includes other ingredients like brown sugar and butter that tame the heat a bit.

Nashville hot chicken recipes use a spicy combination of dry seasonings finished with a robust wet seasoning dip that gives Nashville hot chicken a reddish hue. The color of a Nashville hot chicken sandwich varies depending on which heat level and recipe.

While the recipe for the Nashville Hot Chicken Sandwich varies by restaurant, it typically consists of a dry rub with a heaping base of cayenne pepper and a proprietary blend of spices unique to the chef preparing it.

Is Nashville or Louisiana chicken hotter? ›

Nashville-style hot chicken is similar, but is known for being even spicier, with the chicken being coated in a paste made of cayenne pepper and other seasonings before being fried.

Nashville is known for its food diversity, with examples including barbecue and pancakes . The legend of Nashville Hot Chicken goes back to Thornton Prince, the man who inspired the very first recipe . The chicken in Nashville Hot Chicken is spicier than most chicken around and is served with a variety of toppings .

Both involve cayenne pepper, but they differ significantly. Despite Nashville's hotter reputation, both can involve wildly varying heat levels; you can find Nashville hot chicken that all but the most sensitive palates can accept and Buffalo chicken that will turn your mouth into a firebreak.

Both involve cayenne pepper, but they differ significantly. Despite Nashville's hotter reputation, both can involve wildly varying heat levels; you can find Nashville hot chicken that all but the most sensitive palates can accept and Buffalo chicken that will turn your mouth into a firebreak.

Nashville hot sauce is like the love child of buffalo sauce and chili oil. It has the kick of buffalo sauce but a smooth, oil-like consistency that makes fried chicken extra tender and extra flavorful. One taste and you'll be addicted! Good news is, it's beyond easy to make.

As the name indicates, Nashville hot chicken is fried chicken with a major kick. The chicken gets a hefty dose of spice thanks to hot sauce and cayenne in the coating, as well as a spicy sauce drizzled over the top.

A typical Nashville-style hot chicken spice paste has two key ingredients: lard and cayenne pepper. The two are mixed together, three parts pepper to one part lard, and heated until they form a thick sauce. Some restaurants vary the composition of the paste, adding sugar, garlic, or additional hot sauce.