Every Recipe for Tennessee’s Hot Slaw Has a Different Secret Ingredient

“We are hot slaw,” says Ross Weaver, owner of The Chef, a burger joint in Cleveland, Tennessee. “People from 10 miles away don’t know what it is—even the next communities over, in Athens or Chattanooga, let alone 49 other states in this country.” And yet, according to Weaver, who grew up here, everyone in town has a closely guarded, and possibly hotly contested, recipe based on the original, created at a now-defunct 1950s drive-in movie concession stand. Hot slaw is also available at gas stations, grocery stores, food trucks, and local diners.

Cleveland lies in the Great Appalachian Valley, a little west of the Blue Ridge Mountains, in a corner of Tennessee that snuggles up to Alabama and Georgia. Originally a territory occupied by the Cherokee Nation, and bitterly divided during the Civil War, today the city is mostly industrial, one of the largest manufacturing hubs in the Southeast, but its true claim to fame was a long time coming, when the Tennessee state legislature named hot slaw its first official state food in 2024, beating out Memphis barbecue, Nashville hot chicken, banana pudding, and country ham. So how did that happen?

Cold cabbage salad was introduced to North America by the Dutch in the early 17th century. The term coleslaw is derived from the Dutch koolsla, a combination of kool, or cabbage, and sla, meaning salad. The first recorded recipes consisted of finely chopped cabbage, dressed with vinegar and oil or melted butter, but that would change with the introduction of commercial mayonnaise brands, which became a staple of Southern grocery shelves at the turn of the 20th century. According to The Joy of Cooking (1997), raw cabbage is the only consistent ingredient in classic coleslaw. Everything else added—carrots, pickles, onions, radishes, bacon, even Brussels sprouts—is up for debate. And in the version that has put Cleveland on the culinary map, that can mean mouth-blistering peppers.

Hot slaw is not cooked. The heat comes from chilies, most typically mild jalapeños, but it’s merely a starting point, because some people can handle higher spice levels than others, and that’s where the dialogue can get fiery.

“Cleveland is the hotbed of hot slaw,” says Melissa Woody, head of tourism for the Cleveland Chamber of Commerce. She also helps organize the annual Hot Slaw and Art Y’all Festival, which features a slaw dog-eating contest. (Top prize is $500. Last year’s winner ate 12.) “What makes it special? Of course, love. And the juice off that pepper? Everybody does it different, there’s no super wrong way to do it.”

Woody attests recipes in the “slaw-off” competition might include whole green Texas Pete Tabasco peppers or Mezzetta pickled peppers, but then again, others in town are tight-lipped about exactly which get mixed into their batches. “Ours is a little bit hotter than what’s out there,” says Laney Callaway, co-founder of Fuzz’s Hot Slaw, named after her father William “Fuzz” Lloyd Callaway, whose version was handed down from her grandmother. “It’s a family secret.”

What most can agree on is the condiment’s location of origin. The StarVue Drive-In Theater opened around 1949, at the height of outdoor movie popularity; it had a concession stand that sold popcorn, soft drinks, and hot dogs slathered with tangy mustard-based slaw. Not fancy mustard, just yellow squeeze-bottle mustard, in addition to mayo, crunchy cabbage, onions, and a long-lost pepper, according to Weaver, who explains that owner and operator Cletus H. Benton reportedly had a high tolerance for spice. “You can’t get the original peppers anymore,” he says.

Weaver took over his father’s mid-century diner five years ago, and lays claim to the StarVue hot slaw dynasty. (He owns the drive-in’s 1955 model buffalo chopper, which shredded whole cabbage heads for the concession stand.) “We’ve been making it for 43 years, longer than anyone else in the country, and have a direct line to the original. Only three of us know the recipe.”

However, Weaver admits dropping the onions. “There’s a big crowd that don’t like onion. At this point, this is our recipe, you know what I mean?” And what do his customers put hot slaw on? “Literally about everything. Chicken biscuits, BLTs, brisket, barbecue sandwiches. I would say where it shines, personally, are chili dogs. People even eat it for breakfast. It is a cultural thing here for sure.”

Even though The Chef began life as a burger franchise, it’s now a family operation. Weaver’s 88-year-old grandmother still bakes the apple fritters and pecan pies. He still has their original 1967 pie warmer on display. “History? It gives me cold chills.”

Two years ago, Weaver also introduced a hotter version of the city’s beloved condiment he calls “fire slaw.” (It includes habaneros.) And he just created a new burger called the Hot Slaw Deluxe. “There’s no telling what mom-and-pop town has the next thing, but my goal is to show the other 49 states what hot slaw is.” Until then, you’ll have to come to Tennessee to try it.