The Best Store-Bought Buffalo Sauces, Tested by Food Network Kitchen

At its core, buffalo sauce is just medium-heat hot sauce combined with butter. So, the tricky part in creating a bottled version is capturing that same blend of flavors, while also making it shelf-stable. Some varieties I tested just didn’t make the cut on this list, because they had such a strong artificial butter flavor, while others got the balance of hot sauce and butter completely wrong. Sweet Baby Ray’s Buffalo Wing Sauce avoided both pitfalls. With its rich orange color, this buffalo sauce variety had a well-rounded tangy flavor and just the right amount of addictive heat. It tastes exactly as you would expect it to.

Everyone has a different tolerance when it comes to peppers and chiles, but you can still have a very satisfying buffalo sauce experience even if spice isn’t your friend. Some brands I tried replaced the heat with more butter flavoring, tomato or sugar, which in turn made them taste more like movie theater popcorn, ketchup or a savory syrup. Frank’s Red Hot Wings Sauce Mild stays true to the flavor of pure buffalo sauce, all while dialing back, but not fully eliminating, the warming heat of cayenne peppers. The sauce itself has a slight sweetness and the inclusion of garlic adds a bump in flavor. Despite its lower heat level, the overall flavor is big and craveable.

There was a whole group of buffalo sauces in my 24 bottle collection that proclaimed themselves to be "extra-hot" versions of the classic. This made me curious since many of the ones that were labeled "medium-heat" were plenty hot themselves. Though this category seemed promising, most of these dark red-colored sauces missed the mark. Some were more mild in heat than "medium," while others tasted way too much like hot sauce to even be considered a buffalo sauce. Steve’s & Ed’s Extra Hot Wing Sauce is full of sharp and bright bursts of heat, while still bringing the creamy vinegar flavor you want in a buffalo sauce. It instantly sizzled on my tongue and made my mouth start to prickle and water. The heat didn’t linger for too long, making it ideal for getting through a big platter of snacks without deadening your taste buds.

You know that one person who claims nothing is too hot for them? Melinda’s Creamy Style Ghost Pepper Wing Sauce and Condiment was created with them in mind! Made from a tangy blend of cayenne, habanero and ghost peppers, this extra-bold buffalo sauce is not for the faint of taste buds. In fact, the smell alone is enough to clue you in to how hot this buffalo sauce truly tastes. The heat doesn’t immediately hit your tongue. Rather, the burn starts quickly and intensely in your throat, moving upward. Beyond the numbing heat, its bright chile flavor is delicious. It is a slight departure in flavor from a traditional buffalo sauce profile due to the added flavors of habanero and ghost peppers, but well worth it if you’re a true heat seeker.

If you want to shake things up without veering too far away from that signature buffalo sauce flavor, Cholula Caliente Wing Sauce is a must-try. The brand, which is known for their expansive line of hot sauces, utilizes arbol and piquin chiles along with the more traditional cayenne in this zesty wing sauce offering. The combination gives the sauce a rich and earthy flavor that’s very reminiscent of dried chiles.