Alliums
Hardneck Garlic
Siberian (porcelain hardneck)
Planted in October, pulled in July. Big easy-peeling cloves, plus scapes in June — a free second crop that is itself excellent in a green sauce.
- Maturity
- 240 d
- Start
- 0 wk early
- Per plant
- 0.2 lb
The grow files
Grow the ingredients.
Every sauce here.
Choose peppers, tomatoes, herbs, and other crops for the sauce you want to make. Each cultivar guide gives you the temperatures, spacing, and harvest timing to plan the season.
Alliums
Spanish Onion
Yellow Sweet Spanish (long-day)
A long-day storage onion sweet enough to sweat down without scorching. The aromatic base under every tomato sauce on this site — and the earliest sowing on the calendar.
- Maturity
- 110 d
- Start
- 12 wk early
- Per plant
- 0.75 lb
Brassicas3 gal pot
Mustard greens
Garnet Giant (Brassica juncea)
Cool-season mustard for fast baby leaf, full-size greens, and a small seed crop you can grind into homemade brown mustard.
- Maturity
- 30 d
- Start
- 0 wk early
- Per plant
- 0.5 lb
Herbs3 gal pot
Cilantro
Slow Bolt (Coriandrum sativum)
Bolts in a heartbeat and there is nothing you can do about it — so you succession-sow instead of fighting it. Non-negotiable in salsa verde and zhoug.
- Maturity
- 45 d
- Start
- 2 wk early
- Per plant
- 0.25 lb
Herbs3 gal pot
Genovese Basil
Genovese
Large-leaf, low-anise Italian basil. Pesto is defined by this cultivar — Thai and lemon basil are good plants and wrong ingredients.
- Maturity
- 60 d
- Start
- 4 wk early
- Per plant
- 0.5 lb
Peppers5 gal pot
Cayenne
Long Slim Cayenne (Capsicum annuum)
The chile that dries. Thin-walled, straightforward, 30,000–50,000 SHU — it becomes flakes and powder as easily as it becomes sauce.
- Maturity
- 75 d
- Start
- 8 wk early
- Per plant
- 1.8 lb
Peppers5 gal pot
Habanero
Orange Habanero (Capsicum chinense)
The fruity superhot that fermented hot sauce is built on — 100,000–350,000 SHU with an apricot top note that survives three weeks in brine.
- Maturity
- 95 d
- Start
- 10 wk early
- Per plant
- 2.5 lb
Peppers5 gal pot
Jalapeño
Early Jalapeño (Capsicum annuum)
Left to red and cold-smoked it becomes chipotle, which is a completely different and far more useful ingredient than the green pepper on your nachos.
- Maturity
- 75 d
- Start
- 8 wk early
- Per plant
- 3 lb
Peppers5 gal pot
Marconi Red Pepper
Marconi Red (Capsicum annuum)
A long Italian sweet pepper that chars and peels in one piece. Romesco and any red-pepper paste want this, not a supermarket bell.
- Maturity
- 80 d
- Start
- 8 wk early
- Per plant
- 3.5 lb
Peppers5 gal pot
Serrano
Serrano Tampiqueño (Capsicum annuum)
Three times a jalapeño's heat with a cleaner, greener, grassier flavour. The correct chile for salsa verde and zhoug, where smoke would be wrong.
- Maturity
- 80 d
- Start
- 8 wk early
- Per plant
- 2 lb
Roots5 gal pot
Nantes Carrot
Scarlet Nantes
The carrot that makes fermented habanero sauce work — sweetness and body without fibre, so the sauce has texture with no thickener and heat that isn't one-dimensional.
- Maturity
- 70 d
- Start
- 2 wk early
- Per plant
- 0.15 lb
Tomatillos10 gal pot
Tomatillo
Toma Verde
Not a green tomato. A husked, naturally acidic fruit at around pH 3.8 with its own pectin — salsa verde is a tomatillo sauce and there is no substitute.
- Maturity
- 70 d
- Start
- 6 wk early
- Per plant
- 6 lb
Tomatoes10 gal pot
Roma Tomato
Roma VF (determinate paste)
The determinate paste tomato — it ripens most of its crop in a three-week window, which is a liability for eating and a huge advantage for sauce day.
- Maturity
- 75 d
- Start
- 6 wk early
- Per plant
- 9 lb
Tomatoes10 gal pot
San Marzano Tomato
San Marzano (indeterminate paste)
The paste tomato Italian canners actually use — low water, low seed, high pectin. It reduces to sauce in half the time a slicer takes and never tastes thin.
- Maturity
- 80 d
- Start
- 6 wk early
- Per plant
- 12 lb