This is our 100th hot sauce review for the Hot Zone Online (not counting our Feature Product writeups), and what better way to start our new century of hot sauce reviews than to make another visit to the world of Nando’s products…this one with the Extra Hot Peri-Peri Sauce. While we’ve done great stuff with some of their cooking sauces, such as our reviews of their Roasted Reds and Lemon Peri-Peri, we almost forget that their hot sauces are pretty decent as well.

Although we’ve tasted the “Hot” version of the Nando’s Hot Peri-Peri sauce, we’ve only done a review on the Medium Peri-Peri sauce. I have been licking my chops at the opportunity to try and use this sauce since we picked up a bottle at the Jungle Jim’s show this past August. For every company that makes an “extra hot” version of their sauce, it’s always interesting to see what level of heat that version ultimately turns out to be. This sauce has this in it:

Ingredients: water, vinegar, salt, lemon puree, serrano peppers, onion puree, African Birds Eye peppers (Peri-Peri peppers), sunflower oil, cayenne pepper, xanthan gum, paprika, garlic, propylene glycol alginate

The ingredients are essentially the same as the Medium version, but with a higher amount of the African Birds Eye peppers for a little extra kick. One good thing is that the list of ingredients are pretty “clean,” meaning no shelf-stabilizing stuff added to it. What it does have is some of our favorite peppers…the serrano. The sauce is described rather simply:

Robust earthy Peri-Peri flavor with hints of garlic and lemon that delivers a serious Peri-Peri kick.

Taste: It’s difficult to write the description of this hot sauce without recycling everything that has been said about the Medium sauce, since the similarity is pretty striking. The initial taste is strongly of the lemon and onion, with accents of vinegar and delicious serrano. The heat was the truly puzzling thing, though. As I tasted a little straight from the bottle, I kept waiting for the “extra hot” burn to reach up and smack me.

It never came.

The sauce is certainly less sweet than its Medium cousin, but the heat isn’t over the top either. I’d call it about 7/10 or so, with not much build with more consumption. It certainly has the consistency and aroma I would like, but it could probably use a few extra Peri-Peri peppers to give it that extra oomph.

Most of the so-called hotter sauces lose their utility as you torque up the heat level, but this sauce is the exact opposite. The extra heat does a lot for the flavor…call it a synergistic flavor combination. Heck, I used this sauce on just about everything I ate for nearly a week. From slathering over steak and chicken breasts to egg scrambles to soup, this sauce added great spicy pepper flavor to your meal entrees. The safe thing was to just use it on chicken, but that is not at all the most that this does well with when you use it.

Overall recommendation: Want an extra-hot hot sauce? Well, keep looking because you won’t find it with this sauce. Despite its name, this sauce is all bark and no bite. However, what you have is a really tasty pepper sauce every bit as worth of you trying it on your own. Whether you do the Nando’s thang and use it on chicken, or just pour it over everything on your dinner plate, the sauce’s flavor is lemon-and-pepper good. Just don’t ask me for the sauce that I have left…it’s all mine. Enjoy!

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