Between my intensely challenging Hamlet rehearsals and the extra time spent thinking about killing myself to avoid the intensely challenging Hamlet rehearsals, I’ve had very little time to cook lately. If I keep working at my current rate of speed, it’s going to take me the rest of my life to reach my goal of cooking every recipe in Paula Deen’s Southern Cooking Bible.

Some months ago I told you that I was going to share the secret ingredient in Paula Deen’s Family Reunion Deviled Eggs. And, at long last, here it is.

Drum roll, please!

Hot sauce. It’s hot sauce!

And hot sauce = delicious deviled eggs, my friends. The hot sauce gives the eggs just a nice little kick that will make them stand out from the standard potluck deviled eggs but not enough kick that a person who doesn’t like “hot” is going to spit one out under the picnic table.

It has occurred to me that there is the possibility that hot sauce is not actually a secret ingredient. Maybe all Southerners put hot sauce in their deviled eggs. After learning that Southerners put mayonnaise on their pears, nothing would surprise me. But I’ve never heard about hot sauce in deviled eggs, so, in my mind, it’s the secret ingredient to the most egg-cellent-ly delightful deviled eggs. And now you have it!

Here’s a link to a site that has published the actual recipe just as it appears in the cookbook.

https://www.recipething.com/recipes/show/37198-family-reunion-deviled-eggs

Next time, I’m taking a break from Paula to tell you how to make the best fried green tomatoes ever in the history of food.

So… see you for that in 2026.

Just kidding. Maybe.