Step 1

Purée the first four ingredients together in a blender; strain the liquid into a heavy-bottomed pot, squeezing out as much liquid out of the pulp as you possibly can. It's important that you don't use a strainer with too fine mesh as you want to incorporate some pulp into the sauce. It's some of the fine pulp that passes through the strainer that gives the sauce body. If there's no pulp at all in the strained mixture, you'll end up with a hot, sweet, sticky syrup with may not taste so bad but it will lack the consistency of Thai Sriracha.

Step 2

Whisk the rest of the ingredients into the pepper-garlic purée and bring the mixture to a boil over medium heat, stirring occasionally.

Step 3

Reduce the heat and let the sauce simmer, uncovered, until the sauce is reduced down to about 4 cups and thickened up a bit, stirring occasionally. If you like your sauce less runny, reduce it longer; the recipe will yield less volume, but the sauce will be thicker and more intense.

Step 4

Let the sauce cool completely before storing in a glass jar. If you don’t stick a dirty spoon into the jar every time you use your sauce, your Sriracha will keep, refrigerated, for a month. It can also be frozen and thawed in the refrigerator.

Step 5

The sauce tastes best if left in the refrigerator for two days after it was made to allow the flavor to mellow out a bit. From that point on, the garlic isn’t quite so strong and the pepper isn’t quite so harsh and fiery.