The Austin Chronicle Hot Sauce Festival, which began in 1990, has become the world’s largest, drawing as many as 15,000 spectators and more than 350 entries every year. This year The Austin Chronicle Hot Sauce Festival will take place onSunday, August 24 at Fiesta Gardens (2100 Jesse E. Segovia St.) in Austin, Texas.

In the 24 years since its inception, what started out as a small contest with a few spectators has turned into one of Austin’s biggest and best-known annual parties. The event is a favorite among hot and spicy food lovers from all over the country. The Hot Sauce Festival also serves as a major fundraiser for the Capital Area Food Bank of Texas. Last year’s Festival raised over 45,300 meals for the Austin area in a six hour period!

FREE to the public (with a donation of three healthy, nonperishable food items or a suggested $5 cash donation to the Capital Area Food Bank of Texas), the event draws upward of 15,000 spectators and more than 350 entries every year.

CAPITAL AREA FOOD BANK DONATION & RAFFLE

The Austin Chronicle Hot Sauce Festival is presented in conjunction with the Capital Area Food Bank. Three healthy, nonperishable food donations or a cash donation for CAFB are requested. Purchase raffle tickets at the festival to be included in the drawing for this year’s Sizzling Summer Raffle prize packages (up to five packages available valued at more than $500 each). There’s no limit – purchase as many as you’d like! $5 each, or five for $20. Every $5 raffle ticket purchased allows the food bank to provide $25 worth of nutritious food to Central Texas families.

HOT SAUCE COMPETITION

The hot sauce contest has three levels of competition: individuals (homemade), restaurants, and commercial bottlers. This gives us a good chance to recognize hot sauces in a class by themselves. It also gives us a chance to consider hot sauces made fresh daily in restaurants apart from those made for grocery store shelves. The 2014 featured Hot Sauce Festival judges are some of the finest chefs in Texas!

HOT SAUCE MAKERS

One of the most popular features of The Austin Chronicle Hot Sauce Festival is the giant tasting tent with hundreds of different tasty sauces free for sampling! In order to have as many different kinds of sauces as possible under that tent, we need your help! The Austin Chronicle is working in conjunction with Just Add Chef to allow Individual hot sauce makers to make their sauces in a commercial kitchen so that our volunteers can then put them out for the general public to sample.

On Friday, Aug. 22, and Saturday, Aug. 23, Just Add Chef’s commercial kitchen will be available for FREE so that you can make your hot sauce. YOU MUST BRING ALL OF YOUR OWN INGREDIENTS, and please plan to make one quart of sauce. Once you are finished, you will receive a receipt verifiying that your hot sauce was made in a commercial kitchen. Please BRING THIS RECEIPT WITH YOU WHEN YOU check in on the morning of the event. ALL HOT SAUCE ENTRIES WILL BE JUDGED BY OUR PANEL OF JUDGES regardless of where they were made.

Just Add Chef is located at 3505 N. I-35. Hours of availability: Friday, Aug. 22, 2pm-6pm; Saturday, Aug. 23, 9am-6pm. Call Herb at 708-1125 to schedule your appointment.