More than big burgers: New hot sauce brand born out of Clinton Station Diner kitchen
The Clinton Station Diner’s burger challenges — where diners can win up to $2,000 by finishing up to 105 pounds of burgers — have garnered it attention from ambitious meat eaters thanks to its feature on the Food Network’s “Outrageous Food.”
But soon, the iconic 24/7 diner next to Route 78 might be known for something spicier.
The restaurant was the birthplace of Bearded Dragon Hot Sauce, an all-natural hot sauce made in the Clinton Station Diner kitchen. The hot sauce was created by diner director of business development Nick Zambas, who is also the son of restaurant founder Mike Zambas.
“Immediately after putting it on the tables, we were getting people running up to us and saying, ‘What do you guys have here?’ " Nick Zambas said. “We started getting great feedback, so we decided to form a company and start selling online.”
Now, Zambas’ two hot sauces — made from peppers grown in his “big Greek family’s” garden — are available at the diner, Metropolitan Seafood in Lebanon and beardeddragonhotsauce.com. The cost for an 8-ounce bottle is $15.
The red chili and garlic hot sauce is made with four types of peppers and is similar to a sriracha, Zambas said. It has a complex flavor but “just the right amount of heat,” he said, as well as a garlic kick.
The serrano, onion and garlic hot sauce, which Zambas also described as “vibrant,” has heat followed with a sweet aftertaste.
Early this spring, Bearded Dragon Hot Sauce will release two new flavors as part of its spicier exotic fruit line: a pomegranate yuzu and scorpion pepper sauce, and a mango pineapple habanero sauce. The brand will eventually create cocktail mixes, rubs and other types of condiments, Zambas said.
Bearded Dragon Hot Sauce products do not contain preservatives, colorings, thickeners, emulsifiers or MSG.
“We pride ourselves in taking a long time to form these recipes using all-natural ingredients,” Zambas said.
A long time is right: It took Zambas two years to perfect his hot sauce recipes.
In 2018, a few months after graduating from college with a degree in product design and entrepreneurship, he began tinkering with hot sauce recipes. He was inspired by his years growing up and making homemade hot sauce with his family, using excess peppers available at the end of each summer from their enormous garden.
He brought different versions of his sauces to family parties, gathering feedback until the recipe was just right. Then, two years later, Zambas launched Bearded Dragon Hot Sauce in February 2020. The pandemic hit just weeks later, so Zambas was a little worried.
But it ended up working out.
“It was good for us in the sense that people were staying at home and cooking,” he said.
Hot sauce isn’t Zambas’ first foray into the food world. He’s worked at the diner for nearly two decades, since he was a middle-schooler.
“This gave me a strong relationship to not only my family and our roots, but also our love for real, natural foods,” he said. “We have done everything from pickling our own vegetables to growing our own fruits and making jams and hot sauces.”
But there was always something about hot sauce that left Zambas looking for just one more bite.
“I love complex flavors, and I also grew up with ulcerative colitis, so I have a very sensitive stomach,” Zambas continued. “I wanted to make something that wouldn’t affect me as much, but was still very natural and flavorful, so hot sauce spoke to me in that sense. I put hot sauce on all of my food.”
For more information, visit beardeddragonhotsauce.com.
Jenna Intersimone has been a staff member at the USA TODAY NETWORK New Jersey since 2014, after becoming a blogger-turned-reporter following the creation of her award-winning travel blog. To get unlimited access to her stories about food, drink and fun, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.
Contact: JIntersimone@MyCentralJersey.com
This article originally appeared on MyCentralJersey.com: Bearded Dragon Hot Sauce born out of Clinton Station Diner kitchen
