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When it comes to summer meals, fast, fresh, and flavorful are key. The secret for many home chefs is easier than you’d think: Effortlessly add heat and pizzazz to your meals with hot sauce.
As luck would have it, Portlanders don’t need to reach for national brands. The place we call home brims with creativity, DIY tenacity, and a dynamic food scene, so it’s no wonder we’ve got homegrown hot sauce by the barrel.
“One thing that makes our city really special is that we have so many awesome sauce makers,” says Sarah Marshall of Marshall’s Haute Sauce, who sources all her ingredients from the Portland Farmers Market, where you’ll also find her selling her wares.
Why are there so many local hot sauces? “We are a city of so many creative people, and it’s a natural path for creatives to start their own business,” Marshall explains. “Plus, making sauce really lends itself to creativity.”
She started Marshall’s Haute Sauce with her husband, Dirk Marshall, in 2011, and continues to make each bottle from scratch in her commercial kitchen. The company typically offers 15 varieties a season. Expected flavors this summer include Strawberry Rhubarb Ghost, Bird’s Eye Basil, and Spicy Peach BBQ.
“I tell the story of Oregon agriculture with each bottle,” Marshall says. Other favorites include Serrano Ginger Lemongrass, Red Chili Lime-Red Jalapeño, and Caramelized Scorpion Ghost-Ghost Pepper Hot Sauce. “I have some very mild to very spicy hot sauces,” Marshall says, including one Whiskey Smoked Ghost, which was featured on the talk show Hot Ones.
“When I first started, I didn’t make things very spicy,” Marshall says, but she’s found that her own taste for spicier flavors has developed alongside Portland’s. “I think the city has gotten more into spicy foods. You see people’s tastes changing, seeking more fun and excitement from their food. I now love to find the spiciest things and try them.”
Marshall, who is also a cookbook author, leads a collective of local sauce makers, the Pacific Northwest Sauce Makers Group. “I thought we should be buddies instead of just competing,” she adds. This ethos served them all well in the pandemic and beyond.
“I think the other thing that makes our city really special is that we have a lot of women sauce makers, which is pretty rare,” Marshall says.
Portland’s hot sauce maker scene is “eclectic, creative, and high quality,” says Greg Cabeza, artisan chef at Market of Choice, where you’ll find numerous local hot sauce brands on the shelves. The purveyors come from all walks of life, Cabeza says, “bringing their own life experience, cultural background, and unique flavor vision.” From professional chefs to passionate home cooks, these entrepreneurs have been able to turn treasured family recipes and traditions and the bounty of Oregon’s farms into their hot sauce creations.
Rajiv Harry, maker of Plant Bomb!, is a great example. He grew up in Portland eating his family’s pepper sauce, a pungent mix of carrot, citrus, and vinegar flavors. “It’s hot, very hot, and a West Indies fusion of Afro-East Indian Caribbean.” That sauce—and the communal meals it flavored—infused him with a deep understanding that, as he says, “food was about community, culture, and flavor.” His goal for Plant Bomb! is to create hot sauces that honor that heritage and its flavors.
Harry, also known as “Mr. Saucery,” thinks summer is an ideal time to expand your sauce collection. “Sunny weather brings out a better mood and energy in us. We’re barbecuing, drinking cool beverages, and eating grilled foods, kebabs, and hand foods,” all dishes that taste better with a zesty little something on top.
“Portland has a big audience for hot sauce and welcomes spice and different flavors,” says Harry, who layers ingredients like curry, ginger, carrot, and habanero into his hot sauce.
“There has been a wave of this new thing of people wanting uncontrollable heat,” Harry says of Portlanders. “I think there may be some ego and pride in trying the hottest flavors!”
“My hot sauces are hot but very flavorful,” says Elsy Dinvil, owner and founder of Creole Me Up. Her whimsically named products, such as Drop It Like It’s Hot and Ass on Ice, are Haitian-inspired. Like many other local offerings, her hot sauces are perishable and free of allergens, added sugars, and chemicals.
“What’s special about making hot sauce in Portland is that Portlanders are adventurous foodies who are curious about ethnic flavors,” Dinvil says.
Local farmers markets are a great place to sample many hot sauces at once. “Aficionados for spiciness come back for more of these sauces weekend after weekend,” Dinvil says. In the summer, she explains, Portlanders want sauces that add bold flavors to their table in no time. “My hot sauces do just that!”
Many local groceries also carry homegrown brands. At Market of Choice, Cabeza recommends HAB Sauce’s Miso Ghosted: “It’s full of miso umami with just the right amount of heat.” And HYCH: “Their Guajillo Smokey Roasted Pepper, Bibimbap Korean Style, and Pineapple Roasted Garlic Habanero are all on my summer list.” HAB has roots in Indonesia, Latin America, and the Netherlands, and HYCH’s owners are world-traveling chefs who hail from North Carolina and Colorado. Some of the many other delicious Portland hot sauce companies to check out include Mexican-inspired Hot Mama Salsa, Mud’s Hot Sauce, which uses fermented peppers, Tân Tân Foods from the Beaverton Vietnamese restaurant Tân Tân Café and Delicatessen, the Ethiopian flavors from Eleni’s Kitchen, and Sibeiho, a Singaporean-inspired hot sauce company.
Grab a few to try to add some local sizzle to your summer meals. Later this summer, on Aug. 9 and 10, explore even more hot sauce creations at the 8th Annual PDX Hot Sauce Expo (pdxhotsauceexpo.com) at the OMSI Bridge Lot, where you’ll find a cornucopia of specialty hot sauce makers from near and far. There’s still time to sign up to test your tongue’s tolerance on the Stage of Doom if you dare.
This story is part of Oregon Summer Magazine, Willamette Week’s annual guide to the summer months, this year focused on making the most of and beating the heat. It is free and can be found all over Portland beginning Sunday, June 29, 2025. Find a copy at one of the locations noted on this map before they all get picked up! Read more from Oregon Summer magazine online here.
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