Hot sauce is a type of condiment, seasoning, or salsa made from chili peppers and other ingredients. Many commercial varieties of mass-produced hot sauce exist.

Humans have used chili peppers and other hot spices for thousands of years. One of the first commercially available bottled hot sauces in the United States appeared in 1807 in Massachusetts. However, few of the early brands from the 1800s survived to this day. Tabasco sauce, produced by the McIlhenny Company, is the earliest recognizable brand in the United States hot sauce industry, appearing in 1868. As of 2010, it was the 13th best-selling condiment in the United States preceded by Frank's RedHot Sauce in 12th place.

Many recipes for hot sauces exist, but the only common ingredient is some variety of chili pepper. Many hot sauces are made by using chili peppers as the base and can be as simple as adding salt and vinegar. Other sauces use some type of fruits or vegetables as the base and add the chili peppers to make them hot. Manufacturers use many different processes from fermentation, aging in containers, and pureeing and cooking the ingredients to achieve a desired flavor. Because of their ratings on the Scoville scale, spicier peppers such as the ghost pepper, Scotch bonnet or habanero pepper are sometimes used to make hotter sauces. Alternatively, other ingredients can be used to add extra heat, such as pure capsaicin extract or mustard oil. Other common sauce ingredients include vinegar and spices. Vinegar is used primarily as a natural preservative, but flavored vinegars can be used to alter the flavour.

Belizean hot sauces are usually extremely hot and use habaneros, carrots, and onions as primary ingredients. Marie Sharp's is a popular brand of hot sauce produced in the Stann Creek Valley.

Bermudian sherry peppers sauce is made from a base of Spanish sherry wine and hot peppers. The major producer on the island is Outerbridge Peppers.

Hot pepper sauces, as they are most commonly known there, feature heavily in Caribbean cuisine. They are prepared from chilli peppers and vinegar, with fruits and vegetables added for extra flavor. The most common peppers used are habanero and Scotch bonnet, the latter being the most common in Jamaica. Both are very hot peppers, making for strong sauces. Over the years, each island developed its own distinctive recipes, and home-made sauces are still common.^{[citation needed]}

Trinidad Scorpion is considered one of the hottest and most frutal families of strains, and is primarily cultivated and hybridized in the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia.

Bajan pepper sauce, a mustard and Scotch bonnet pepper based hot sauce.