• If you have a question about commercial production or the hot sauce business, please post in Startup Help.

seeds or not ?

I've been using my habenero's seedsl in all my sauces. How many of you use the whole pepper and how many of you remove the seeds ? 
 
Only thing I remove is the stem. Everything else gets processed however the seeds, skin and ingredients that haven't broken down into mush get removed when I run it through the food mill. That way all the flavors go in and in the end i have a nice smooth sauce.
 
I've only made fresh salsa's/hot sauces that get consumed fairly quick. I'm going to start cooking them on the stove soon to get myself ready for harvest time when I will have a dozen plants to figure out what to do with all those peppers lol. I'll probably invest in a food dehydrator. I have 2 smokers I use for fish and also a commercial food saver vacuum sealer. I also have a juicer. I make my own tabasco sauce and use my juicer. 
 
ps- so far I like having the seeds in my sauces.
 
I don't make cooked sauces, but I know that when I get one that has seeds in it, I don't care for that aspect of it. To me part of the reason to make a cooked sauce is, as RM noted, to have smoothness to it. Coming across seeds in an otherwise smooth sauce seems like carelessness on the part of the producer. On the other hand, I do make fresh salsas and am not so picky about the seeds with those, because the feel of the sauce in the mouth is not smooth if all you do is chop things (not put in a blender.) However, pods that are rather seedy have the seeds removed. It's all about texture.
 
Your going to want that pulp to stay in the sauce. It gives it consistency and it has a lot of the flavor. That's why a food mill or a Wire Sieve if you don't have a food mill.
 
I never bother deseeding pods that go into sauces - the food mill does that for me.  Here is the one I have, it has worked well on hot sauces and babyfood for 3 years now.
 
Personally, I always leave the seeds - when cooking, blending, and letting meld. I do run it through a metal mesh strainer though before putting it in bottles, so they get removed right at the end of the process for me.
 
When I make the sauce in my kitchen I use a food mill with 1/8" holes.
 
The copacker's sample came in with seeds in the sauce and I was weary at first, because many of the sauces I see on store shelves have none it.  But it's kind of growing on me (no pun intended) - give the sauce that small-batch look and feel.  They aren't crunchy or anything.  Use em up!
 
I'm resurrecting this thread, mostly to prove that i've searched before posing my question, which is:
 
Why do some folks like to omit the seeds from their sauce?  (I've been leaving them in for quite some time now, unless I'm selfishly trying to save the seeds to grow out later.)
 
Thanks, in advance, for any insight you might have on this.
 
I leave them out often. Depends on the color im after as well as flavor. In a hab sauce for example, im a wuss so they get left out to make a milder sauce. When i can find some mild hab varieties to compliment my sauce i will probably start leaving them in.
 
I will leave them in my lemon drops though. While eating them fresh i thought they were very enjoyable seeds and all.
 
When making a relish or a salsa i pretty much always remove them to reduce the cramps. I go pretty heavy on jalapeno when making nachos.
 
Back
Top