Modernist Cooking Blog: How to Keep Sauces from Separating - Ask Jason

Hi Jason,

I made some Tabasco hot sauce but what I find is that the chilies and vinegar separates in the bottle when standing on the rack for a long time. To try to prevent this my thought was to use xanthan gum, is this the right approach?

Thanks, Johan

I was recently asked this question about what the best method of stabilizing a sauce is. Sauces, emulsions, and other mixtures are basically two or more types of ingredients that don't fully mix but are held in suspension. So an emulsion is typically a mixture of oil and vinegar and a hot sauce is a mixture of chile particles and vinegar. The problem with these mixtures is that when they sit, the two ingredients separate from each other. This is why salad dressing often needs to be shaken up before using it.

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