A while back, we answered the common question, “does hot sauce go bad?” In that post, we recommend refrigerating your hot sauce to extend its shelf life. But does hot sauce need to be refrigerated?

The truth is, it depends on the sauce’s ingredients, source, and how quickly you use it!

Does Hot Sauce Go Bad if Not Refrigerated?

Yes, eventually any open bottle of hot sauce will go bad if it’s not refrigerated. Of course, it will eventually go bad even if it is refrigerated. It just might spoil a little bit faster sitting out in the open.

With the exception of honey, all food eventually spoils. It could be days, months, or decades, but there comes a point with all food when it will no longer be ideal or safe for human consumption regardless of how it’s stored.

Which Hot Sauces Need to Be Refrigerated?

Not all hot sauces are created equal. That’s because not all hot sauces are made the same. Unlike condiments like mayonnaise, which almost always has the same base, hot sauces vary wildly in terms of ingredients.

This variation is one of the things that makes hot sauce so exciting (and is why so many people have dozens of different bottles of the stuff), but it also means you need to treat each one different in terms of whether or not you should refrigerate it.

Homemade Hot Sauces

If you’re making your own hot sauce, good for you! We love sharing hobbies with people! But even if your homemade hot sauce has a vinegar base (which spoils more slowly), we highly recommend keeping it in the refrigerator.

The hot sauces you buy in a store have gone through rigorous testing to ensure that they’ll be safe if stored according to the recommendations on their packaging. Homemade sauces don’t go through that level of testing, and unless you really know what you’re doing, homemade hot sauces could be more susceptible to mold and other spoilage.

Hot Sauces with a Fruit Base

And yes, tomatoes are a fruit. If your hot sauce of choice has a base of or contains pieces of tomatoes, carrots, mangoes, pineapples, other fruits, or chili oils, you should keep them in the refrigerator. Those ingredients spoil more quickly than vinegar-based hot sauces when left out.

With that in mind, we do recommend keeping opened bottles of Secret Aardvark in the refrigerator.

Hot Sauce You Won’t Finish in a Few Weeks

Okay, this is more of a personal opinion. Technically, a hot sauce with a vinegar base is probably fine being stored in a cool, dark pantry for a year, if not longer. And some people swear that keeping hot sauce in the refrigerator will kill the flavor.

Keeping any hot sauce in the refrigerator, even if it technically doesn’t need to be there due to spoilage risk, slows the oxidation processes. Even Frank’s RedHot’s website FAQs state that keeping the sauce chilled will keep it fresher for longer.

For more advice on keeping your hot sauce fresh and spoilage-free, read our article Does Hot Sauce Go Bad?