How much sauce are you putting on your food though? 17% sugar is bad in a drink where it adds up fast, but for a hot sauce where you're using maybe 2 teaspoons max (likely less), that's like 1-2 grams of sugar. Essentially a rounding error in your daily intake.
replySure, you can skip sugar entirely if you want to. But then you're getting a different flavor entirely. Southeast Asian stuff is often sweet and spicy and gets that flavor through sugar. No way around it, unless you're using artificial sweeteners.
I think GP was commenting about the taste, not the grams of sugar it adds to your daily intake.
replyAnd I agree. I like many varieties of hot sauce, but sriracha is just too sweet for me.
It's the same reason I am picky about Thai restaurants. So many of them lean hard on the sugar. Not to my taste! I like a more balanced flavor.
If you don't want sugar, Huy Fong's chili garlic sauce is an option.
replynothing about this ingredients list is awful, what are you talking about?
replyBut it has chemicals in it...
replyi wouldn’t last a day as a food chemist
replyFor some of us it's a fairly boring taste. Pepper plus vinegar plus sugar is basically spicy ketchup. That's good for some but not for others.
replyI like the taste of peppers but most hot sauces taste more like vinegar or capsaicin than actual peppers. I think I'm sensitive to vinegar, and my spice tolerance is not always high.
I find Chili crisp to get me what I want.