The Widely Accepted Copycat For Starbucks' Sriracha Sauce

Starbucks is synonymous with coffee — lattes, macchiatos, frappuccinos, and the rest of the coffee drinks that propelled the company to incredible success. But many of the chain's customers are focused on a very different offering that they crave: its sriracha — which is either a condiment or a sauce; it's up for debate. They've been trying to find a substitute that closely matches Starbucks' version of the sweet, tangy, and garlicky Thai hot sauce since it doesn't sell the sriracha in stores.

The only way for customers to get the spicy sauce is to ask for packets of it when they get any of Starbucks' hot breakfast sandwiches or wraps; egg bites; potato, cheddar, and chive bakes; or warm lunch sandwiches. Fans love what they say is its sweeter and milder taste than other srirachas, including Huy Fong's, the iconic brand that launched the sauce in the United States. Some entrepreneurial people are trying to fill the demand, as devotees who do a little searching can find Starbucks sriracha packets being sold on sites like eBay.

People determined to find a good replacement have searched and taste tested different brands of sriracha — which should always be stored in the fridge for optimal flavor — with some thinking Tabasco Brand's sriracha comes closest, and others believing Chick-fil-A's Sweet & Spicy Sriracha Sauce is a better match. But one brand that's become a widely accepted copycat online is Yellowbird's Blue Agave Sriracha.

Yellowbird Food's sriracha is made with the standard ingredients red jalapeño peppers, vinegar, garlic, and salt. But a couple of less-than-traditional elements are sweeter than usual, and could be the reason it's a close match for Starbucks' claimed sweeter sriracha. The Yellowbird sauce contains syrupy blue agave nectar, which is made from the sap of the blue agave plant, and is sweeter than sugar, sriracha's normal sweetener. Tangerine juice concentrate gives even more sweetness as well as a bright and tangy citrus flavor that's complemented by lime juice concentrate.

The bottle describes the sauce as being "mellow hot," and the increased sweetness likely works to temper the heat, another reason it could be a good copycat for Starbucks' milder sriracha. Yellowbird's website helpfully gives its Scoville heat units, a measure of peppers' spiciness. It comes in at the lower end of the scale, from 1,325 to 2,650 since jalapeño peppers are in the milder range. A Scoville measure of 0 to 2,000 is considered mild while the next up, 2,000 to 50,000 is mild hot — right where jalapeño falls. And while mild, its popularity is easy to understand considering sweet and spicy has had a rebrand that's taken over the culinary scene.

Yellowbird Foods sells a variety of hot pepper sauces made with different fruits and vegetables. The company was co-founded in 2012 in Austin, Texas, by a couple who couldn't find a hot sauce with all-natural ingredients, so they created a habanero sauce that launched their business and combined their passion for nature with hot sauces.