The 4 Best Tiger Sauce Substitutes For Your Recipes

If you have ever tried Tiger Sauce, you know for a fact how delicious and irresistible it is. Its sweet but tangy flavor is able to make everyone fall in love with it at first bite.

There is not a single flaw to be found about it except for an isolated, tiny one: it is incredibly hard to find.

In fact, not every supermarket or corner shop across the USA and the world have Tiger Sauce in stock, and it is an absolute travesty.

But fear no more, as we compiled a list of Tiger Sauce substitutes that will be able to fulfill all your cravings in an instant!

The best substitute for Tiger Sauce

Tiger Sauce is simply fantastic. This sauce has a cayenne pepper base that makes it moderately spicy, with sweet and tangy hints. Sort of like a sweet and sour sauce, but spicier.

Other Tiger Sauce ingredients include a mixture of sugar and distilled vinegar, to give it its signature sweet and sour taste; in addition, it contains crushed red peppers for extra spiciness.

This incredible, exotic blend is delightful to be added as a final touch on sandwiches, dips, and even soups. During an outdoor BBQ, it is even possible to add it to the grilled meat or veggies to give them that extra kick.

After all, celebrity Chef Johnny Trigg brought this fantastic sauce to popularity after resorting to it in his delicious barbecue ribs. Once it came to be a thing, no one ever looked back!

The perfect Tiger Sauce substitute needs to possess all those qualities to be called accordingly. Tiger Sauce is quite unique, and that does not make the search any easier.

Still, there are a few options you could choose from. You could either prove yourself and produce your own version of Tiger Sauce at home, or plan to buy a sauce similar to it, maybe adding an extra ingredient or two.

Do not despair, and read further to see the Tiger Sauce alternatives we have gathered for you.

1. Homemade Tiger Sauce

A good Tiger Sauce alternative is making your own from the comfort of your home. It might sound like something extremely complicated, but it is not.

It only contains a few ingredients that are reasonably easy to find in your local stores, and it merely requires 10 to 15 minutes to prepare.

Homemade Tiger Sauce represents an incredible alternative not only because it is more affordable, but also because it is customizable.

While preparing the Tiger Sauce alternative, it is possible to eliminate ingredients that do not tickle your fancy and to add whatever adds a nice twist or kick to your sauce.

One way to develop your homemade substitute for Tiger Sauce is to mix cayenne pepper and corn syrup.

If you do not have any corn syrup at hand, it is equally possible to use either brown sugar or honey in your mixture.

You need to measure all your ingredients together, then simply stir well and transfer it to a pot on the stove at low heat. Add a little bit of water and do not allow your sauce to sit in the pot, keep stirring it for 3 to 5 minutes until it is ready.

Pour it in a glass jar or bottle and let it cool down on the counter. When it is completely cold, place it in the fridge and employ it when you need it.

Another easy method is to mix sugar or dried honey for sweetness, apple cider vinegar and Worchestershire sauce for their signature acidity, and Thai pepper paste.

Whisk all the ingredients together and cook on low heat for no more than five minutes. When it is done, let it sit until it is completely cold, then store in the fridge.

Like the one you normally get at the store, this homemade Tiger Sauce is perfect to be served with an incredible variety of dishes.

It complements any type of meat perfectly, from barbecued chicken wings to steak. Just add a few drops on top of them or add a little to the side of your plate, and you are good to go.

As it is so similar to Tiger Sauce, you can also use it to spice up your dips or any kind of soup. If you enjoy a good, spicy sandwich, this homemade sauce matches perfectly with any type of filling, taking your meal to a whole new level.

2. Hot sauce

It sounds as simple as that. Take your favorite hot sauce and mix it with some honey or corn syrup.

The mixture will give you a superb sweet and sour, hot glaze that is the perfect fit for barbecued meat and burgers!

Tabasco is extremely popular and easy to find, so it could be a valid option as a replacement for Tiger Sauce.

Sriracha might also work as the perfect Tiger Sauce alternative. You should always remember to add a sweetener to replicate Tiger Sauce’s signature sweet and sour taste; it is more adequate to use a runny sweetener like honey or corn syrup.

This will allow you to create a creamy, smooth consistency to facilitate the spreading of meat or your sandwich buns.

As this substitute Tiger Sauce does not need to be reheated like our previous method, brown sugar will not work as well. It will make your mixture consistency a little too granular and too difficult to spread or pour on top or the side of your food. 

3. Cajun seasoning sauce

There is another way to replace Tiger Sauce resorting to a homemade method: making your extra spicy cajun Tiger Sauce.

This method will deliver an extra kick to your homemade hot sauce by mixing several seasoning powders and herbs with other ingredients.

First of all, you will need cajun seasoning. It is remarkably easy to obtain with the seasoning you already have laying around in your cupboard, so do not worry.

Mix together salt with your powdered ingredients, onion, and garlic. Then add the dried herbs, thyme, and oregano. Finally, add your spices: paprika, cayenne pepper, black pepper, and red pepper flakes.

Once you have the cajun seasoning mix, add some lemon juice, olive oil, and some mayonnaise (light mayo is preferable in this case).

Stir everything together and there you have it: a fantastic, cajun Tiger Sauce substitute to use with your meat, fish, or even veggie meals.

4. Pickapeppa sauce

Pickapeppa sauce is an impressive substitute for Tiger Sauce. It is a Jamaican sauce, also called Jamaican ketchup. It is very spicy, but it has a sweet and sour aftertaste as well.

This Jamaican sauce has a thick consistency, similar to ketchup. This is why it can be used as a sauce poured on the side of your dish, or even as a marinade to cook jerk chicken.

Its ingredients list is incredibly similar to the Tiger Sauce ones, making it a dupe for the popular sauce. They are so similar, they are frequently placed next to each other on supermarkets’ shelves.

Vinegar, red peppers, and sugar transmit that sweet and sour taste, while raisins and mango concentrate give Pickapeppa sauce an exotic, delicious twist.

It is pungent enough that it can easily be used as a Tiger Sauce substitute for marinades, as sauce, or dip. 

How to choose a Tiger Sauce substitute

Picking your Tiger Sauce substitute is not a complex thing to carry out. It is important that you know two key things in advance, though: what is your meal going to be and what consistency do you like your sauce to be.

If you are hosting a barbecue and cooking meat like steaks, burgers, chicken wings, or a vegetarian/vegan option like tofu or seitan, you can either decide to go for a smooth, creamy sauce or a glaze.

A slightly runny homemade sauce is ideal to be poured on top of your meal or to include a tiny amount on the side to dip your food in.

If you prefer to have your food coated in your sauce, it is most adequate to go for a glaze. The glaze would be the result of the mixing between your favorite hot sauce and a sweetener such as corn syrup or honey.

You can either smear it on top of it while the food is cooking or right afterward as it is still hot. It will add a fantastic spicy kick to your food that is impossible to resist!

For marinades and sauces, a viable option is to select some Pickapeppa sauce from the store. Its superb levels of spiciness and its fantastic sweet and sour taste make it the most appropriate dupe for Tiger Sauce.

If what your meal needs is extra smoothness and more spiciness instead, a homemade cajun Tiger Sauce is what will work best for you.

Utilize it as a dip or as a sauce to pour on top of your meal, and it will prove to be an outstanding success among your guests.