Hot Ones and Firehouse Subs Release Spicy New Sandwiches

For people who really love spicy food, it can be hard to find something hot enough. My mom needs just about every dish she eats to be fiery, so she’s taken to simply asking for a side of fresh chiles when eating out to ensure she can add sufficient heat.

If you, too, are the kind of person who’s on the hunt for a meal that’s just as hot as it is delicious, then Hot Ones has a surprise for you. The celebrity talk show and its host, Sean Evans, are teaming up with sandwich chain Firehouse Subs to deliver a collaboration that’s just as spicy as it promises to be, featuring two new sandwiches and a super spicy pickle that the most daring customers can taste by itself.

Available now for a limited time, the partnership includes two riffs on one of its classic subs: the Spicy Dill Hook and Ladder for serious spice lovers, and the Zesty Garlic Hook and Ladder for those who want a smaller hit of heat.

Like the original Hook & Ladder sandwich, these will feature smoked turkey, honey ham, and melted pepper jack cheese, along with lettuce, tomatoes, and onions. However, the Zesty Garlic will also include garlic chips, mayo, and Hot Ones’ The Classic Garlic Fresno Hot Sauce, while the Spicy Dill will add Firehouse Hero Sauce, and the Last Dab Dill Pickle — a pickle plank marinated in Hot Ones’ Last Dab Reaper Edition hot sauce.

The duo of one less spicy sandwich and a notably fiery one was intentional. “We kind of created our own little summation of the hot ones gauntlet with it,” Sean Evans tells Food & Wine. “You have your really spicy challenging sub with the spicy dill and then something that's a little first half there with the zesty garlic.”

This debut marks the first time Hot Ones’ Last Dab Reaper Edition hot sauce has been featured in a menu collaboration. If you’re curious about just how spicy it can be, Evans says, “That's number 10 in our lineup, our hottest sauce. And it's pretty hot… So even if you're an experienced chile head, that's something that'll ring you up a little bit.”

This sauce gets its extreme heat — and its name — from the world’s second-spiciest pepper, the Carolina Reaper. These chiles were originally developed in South Carolina, where plant cultivator Ed Currie spent a decade creating the unique hybrid of a La Soufrière habanero and a ghost pepper.

On the Scoville scale, a system of measurement used to convey how hot a chile is, the Carolina Reaper averages about 1.64 million Scoville Heat Units (SHU), with a peak SHU rating of 2.2 million. 

This level of spiciness has only been beaten by another of Currie’s creations, Pepper X, which ranks as the hottest chile in the world with an average of 2.69 million SHUs.

As a point of reference, jalapeños typically fall between 2,000–8,000 SHUs, and habaneros are typically rated in the range of 100,000–350,000 SHUs. Those numbers might look big, but remember we’re talking thousands versus millions. 

Consequently, the Last Dab Reaper Edition and the new sandwich it’s featured on are for serious spice lovers. But this sauce doesn’t just bring the heat, it also adds flavor. Evans explains to Food & Wine that “I think that there's a real kind of garden freshness flavor profile to that particular pepper.”

Although be warned, he also notes that “It's a little misleading. When you bite into it, it can almost have the freshness of an apple that you're biting into for the first time, but then what you have is on the other side a build that keeps going and keeps going and you kind of don't know where it's going to stop.”

Combining the hot sauce-marinated pickle with the bread, cheese, and meat of the sandwich does help tamp down a little bit of its fire. But those who really want to test their spice tolerance can ask for a lone pickle on the side — you just might want to have a glass of milk handy for when you try it.

The Hot Ones team, Sean Evans, and Firehouse Subs culinary team worked together closely to determine what flavor profiles would work well with each hot sauce, to ensure the spicy condiments complement the overall sandwich. Evans also says that “We chose to partner with [Firehouse Subs] because there's just such a natural synergy between us. I can't tell you how many firefighters over the years have told me stories about how they'll do the Hot Ones challenge in the firehouse. They of course have the hot sauce bar famously in the restaurant.”

He’s right, the sandwich chain does have a hot sauce bar with 13 different spicy options to choose from, so if you somehow decide these new sandwiches need even more heat, you can simply add some yourself.