School district’s own hot sauce spices up lunch

FEELING THE HEAT: The student population at the Greeley-Evans school district is 60 percent Hispanic, but Director Jeremy West points out, “hot sauce is well-liked by non-Hispanic students, too.” Photo: Greeley-Evans County School District 6

Like many other school districts around the country, Greeley-Evans County School District 6 in Colorado has been feeling the pinch of reduced sodium mandated in the new meal pattern. When students asked for hot sauce, “we were struggling to find options that weren’t high in sodium,” says Jeremy West, nutrition service director at Greeley-Evans.

It was especially important to find a hot sauce, since serving 21,000 students each day entails the quest to make a lot of different taste buds happy. This is where the customization factor of condiments comes in.

“Having low-sodium seasonings and sauces allows students to customize their entrée and side dishes to suit their personal tastes,” West says.

So the culinary team took matters into its own hands and began making, bottling and labeling its own hot sauce in the central production kitchen. 

First came the development phase: creating a hot sauce that would be low enough in sodium, have great flavor and also “not burn your mouth off,” says Matthew Poling, executive chef. 

Poling says he looked to the Cholula brand of hot sauce for flavor-profile information. Small batches were made at first, and taste tested within the department by self-proclaimed “chili heads” with a taste for heat. 

“We wanted it to have some kick, but be mild enough to put on anything,” Poling says. “We wanted it to have some complexity, which is why we chose two different chilies instead of just one.”

The two chilies, pequin and d’arbol, are mostly sourced from New Mexico or California, with local chilies used if available. The chilies are used in dry, whole form and combined with vinegar, sugar, salt and a few other secret spices. That mixture is blended until very smooth and heated to 185°F to kill any pathogens.

From there, the bottling process is pretty simple. The batch is placed into a sanitized 7-gallon bucket with a spout and then distributed with a bottling wand into 8-ounce bottles that have also been sanitized. The bottles are then labeled, capped and shrink wrapped, at about 50 bottles at a time to keep things fresh.

ON THE ROAD TO FLAVOR: The district’s food truck takes its name from the popular new hot sauce. Photo: Greeley-Evans County School District 6

Bottles from the first batch were sent to the Virginia Tech Department of Food and Science, where they were tested for pH, meaning they could officially be called “shelf stable.” 

Once approved by the local health department, the school kitchen made hot sauce, named El Fuego, was ready to unleash its heat.

It’s now available to “chili head” students at all grade levels at the flavor station concept, a place to find low-sodium condiments for the all-important step of customization. It’s also found on the district’s food truck, which was named after the hot sauce. 

The El Fuego hot sauce brand is even being extended, with additional flavors (smoky chipotle and verde) in the works.