Shake Shack’s “Hot Ones” menu is for the real heat lover

As a culture, our tolerance for heat is increasing. I’m not talking about the weather here (although that would be a great evolutionary fit!), I’m talking about the hot sauce. Despite what we know made to our digestive tract, we never get tired of it, and the restaurant chains pay attention to it. We tried Arby’s Diablo Dare Menu, Pizza Hut’s Spicy Lover’Pizzaand Pollo Campero Spicy Chicken Sandwich, all of which were commendable efforts to really bring the heat. Yet there is a persistence smoothness to each mass-produced item, an indication that these marks would be prefer to cater to a wide range of tastes if they can help it. Shake Shack is new The hottest menu, however, wants to blow us out of the water.

“Shack fans love big, bold flavors, and we’re seeing spicy food getting more and more delicious and interesting on every level,” said Shake Shack Culinary Director Mark Rosati. The takeaway. “We try to be thoughtful when experimenting with different flavors and strive to achieve balance between all the elements.”

How spicy is Shake Shack’s Hot Ones menu?

Shake Shack and The hottest have teamed up to create Hot Ones™ Spicy ShackSauce, which Rosati says is made from the classic Hot Ones hot sauce and “The final touch: Apollo » to spice up some Shake Shack classics:

• Hot Ones™ Burger: Bbeef burger topped with Hot Ones™ Spicy ShackSauce, crisp, applewood-smoked bacon and Monterey Jack cheese on a grilled potato bun
• Chicken Hot Ones™: Crispy White Meat Chicken topped with Hot Ones™ Spicy ShackSauce, Crispy Applewood Smoked Bacon and Monterey Jack Cheese on a Grilled Potato Bun

• Hot Ones™ Cheese Fries: Crispy Crinkle Cuts topped with Cheese Sauce and sprinkled with Aleppo Pepper, served with Hot Ones™ Spicy Shack Sauce
• Hot Ones™ Cheese Bacon Fries: Crispy Crinkle Cuts topped with Applewood Smoked Bacon, Cheese Sauce and sprinkled with Aleppo Pepper, served with Hot Ones™ Spicy Shack Sauce

Hot Ones Classic Hot Sauce sits at around 1,800 on the Scoville scale, which is the kind of heat you can expect from an Anaheim or poblano pepper.Heatonist classifies him a 2/10 on the spicy scale. The Last Dab: Apollo, however, is Hot Ones’ spiciest hot sauce, the only one made with Apollo peppers. According to Rosati, this bad boy comes in at 2.5 million on the Scoville scale, beating the Carolina Reaper rating.

Shake Shack rates the combination of this with the Hot Ones sauce and other ShakeSauce ingredients as a 7/10 on the spicy scale, but warns that The Last Dab: Apollo will be a solid 11/10 (if not more).

Sauce-only packets are available as part of the menu for the bravest among us. You can try all of these items now if you order through the Shake Shack app, and starting September 16, the menu will be available in all locations for a limited time. According to Rosati, this won’t be the last time Shake Shack spice things up. He says the channel will continue to experiment with heat in ways that also create intriguing the flavours.

As for this current menu, the general manager of First We Feast (production company of Hot Ones), Chris Schonberger, offers this advice: “Enjoy at your own risk.”