What I like to do is make a large quantity of a "base" sauce with minimal ingredients like peppers, water, a little salt, a tiny pinch of garlic and whichever acid (usually vinegar, lemon or lime juice, or ascorbic acid). Once I have this base sauce it's good on many things as is, or I can experiment by adding other ingredients to small quantities later to see how it turns out.
Doing this I can add the base sauce to many things like a salsa recipe, or soup, or a barbeque sauce, steak marinade, even salad dressing. Once you find a combo of flavors is especially to your liking then make a larger batch like that. Some things I didn't expect to taste good but do to me, like hot wings sauce with milk in it or mixed with mayo on a chicken sandwich.
If you just want some sort of classic/common recipe, add the following ingredients in your choice of ratio:
Peppers, tomato, carrot, onion, garlic, vinegar, salt.
However if that's what you want you can buy something similar at just about any grocery store, though many omit the carrots and add something like xanthan or guar gum as a thickening agent.
