Cuban grilling starts with mojo criollo, the sour orange and garlic marinade, and ends with the sauce on the table. Cuban Flame is the Barbaro Mojo guide to both: the marinade, the caja china pig roast, and which of the five Miami-made Cuban hot sauces (heat 3 to 10) belongs on each cut.
Shop Barbaro MojoFive sauces, hand-bottled in small batches in Miami, with seventeen competition honors across seven blind-judged contests: Grand Prize for packaging at the Scovie Awards (Piñazo™), 1st Place Best Latin Hot Sauce at the International Flavor Awards (El Havanero™), 2nd Place at the 2025 Austin Chronicle Hot Sauce Festival (Matanza™). See every award.
Lechón in the caja china, palomilla steak on the grate, shrimp skewers over the coals. El Havanero™ (9 of 10, habanero and tomato) goes on the pork and steak; Jalabáo™ (3, jalapeño and green bell pepper) on the tostones and the table. These are the recipes from the Barbaro Mojo family’s own Noche Buena roasts.
Every sauce starts with mojo criollo (sour orange, garlic, oregano, cumin), then adds real peppers: jalapeño, habanero, or Carolina Reaper, never extracts. Best Day Ever™ (8) brings mango and habanero; Matanza™ (10) is the only extreme sauce in the line.
Heat numbers are the Barbaro Mojo Cuban heat scale, 1 to 10. Lab-tested Scoville results for all five are on the lab results page.
Jalapeño and green bell pepper on the mojo base. The table sauce for tostones, eggs, and heat-shy guests.
Shop Jalabáo →Pineapple and Carolina Reaper on a pineapple-juice mojo base. Pork chops, fish, grilled pineapple.
Shop Piñazo →Mango and habanero with a little Carolina Reaper. Wings, chicken thighs, shrimp skewers.
Shop Best Day Ever →Habanero, tomato, red bell pepper, sweet onion. Lechón, palomilla steak, pan con bistec.
Shop El Havanero →Habanero and Carolina Reaper, limited runs. The only extreme sauce in the line.
Shop Matanza →Mojo marinade, the caja china, and the sauce for every cut, from the family that roasts a pig every Christmas Eve.
Read More →What the Cuban marinade is, a quick recipe with real quantities, and how to add heat to it.
Read More →Three grill recipes made with the sauces, plus the full Cuban recipe library on barbaromojo.com.
Read More →A Barbaro Mojo site about Cuban grilling. Barbaro Mojo is the Cuban hot sauce company in Miami (founded November 2020, sauces hand-bottled in small batches); Cuban Flame collects the grilling guides, the mojo criollo recipe, and the sauce pairings in one place. The sauces themselves are sold at barbaromojo.com.
El Havanero™ (9 of 10, habanero and tomato) for pork, steak, and lechón; Best Day Ever™ (8, mango and habanero) for wings, chicken, and shrimp; Piñazo™ (6, pineapple and Carolina Reaper) for pork chops and fish; Jalabáo™ (3) for the table when guests are heat-shy. Brush the fruit sauces on in the last few minutes; their sugars burn over direct flame.
A Cuban roasting box: the pig goes inside, the charcoal sits on the lid, and the whole pig roasts in about four hours with crackling skin. It is how the Barbaro Mojo family roasts lechón every Noche Buena, marinated overnight in mojo criollo. The lechón asado recipe walks through it.
On the Barbaro Mojo Cuban heat scale, 1 to 10 (not Scoville): Jalabáo 3, Piñazo 6, Best Day Ever 8, El Havanero 9, Matanza 10. Independent lab Scoville results are on the lab results page.