The Extra Ingredient Guy Fieri Uses For Unbeatable Garlic Bread

Perhaps best known for helming the hit TV show "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives," Guy Fieri is plenty resourceful in the kitchen. For instance, the Food Network star developed a garlic bread recipe that takes the tasty appetizer to a whole new level. While the cheesy, buttery bread is plenty satisfying on its own, Fieri infuses it with a bit of heat thanks to the addition of hot sauce in the butter topping.

Garlic is not only good for you, as it contains essential vitamins and minerals, but it also imbues a sharpness into every dish it touches. Once cooked, garlic offers a mildly sweet yet savory flavor that's often described as having nutty notes. This rich taste pairs perfectly with spicier elements, including hot sauce, which can be easily incorporated into garlic bread per Fieri's recipe. As for which brand of hot sauce is most ideal for this application, the choice ultimately depends on your preferences as they pertain to ingredients and levels of heat.

There's a wide world of hot sauce out there, and true connoisseurs know that each brand and recipe offer a little something different. If you're looking for something mildly hot but with a wider range of flavor, Tabasco sauce is a good selection. Tabasco and other Louisiana-style recipes often contain vinegar, which adds a bit of brightness to the garlicky, buttery goodness of garlic bread. Similarly, many picante sauces feature ingredients like onions and peppers, and are usually available in hotter formulas if you're looking for a significant infusion of heat.

Some hot sauces, such as sriracha, already contain garlic, as well as sugar and vinegar. The same is true of many hot sauces featuring a base of chili oil, which means the flavors of the sauce will mesh beautifully with garlic bread. When adding hot sauce to butter, it's best to be judicious. While it will make for a major flavor improvement, adding too much sauce could overwhelm the other flavors and leave the appetizer a touch too spicy.

While Guy Fieri's garlic bread from Food Network uses a French baguette, you're free to substitute other types of bread. If you want the recipe to be more fluffy than crunchy, while still retaining the crispy crust, slices of Italian bread might be your best option. Thanks to the increased surface area, Italian bread slices will create a Texas toast-style garlic bread, which will be even more flavorful when you add the hot sauce of your choosing to the mixture of butter, cheese, and herbs.

No matter what type of bread you choose, a crispy exterior is a crucial part of the experience. In this case, you may want to leave the bread in the oven for a bit longer than two minutes, which is the approximate baking time Fieri offers in his recipe. However, you'll need to monitor bread doneness closely to avoid burning the delicious dish. Once you're satisfied with the toast color, you can remove it from the oven and pair your garlic bread with everything from seafood to soup, or enjoy it as a standalone appetizer with hot honey and ricotta. For a bona fide trip to Flavortown, you can dunk your tangy garlic bread into a bowl of Fieri's Cajun chicken Alfredo, which the culinary personality called one of his "favorite Mardi Gras dishes" in a segment for "Good Morning America."