JS Blends / A Spicy Gnome – Dragon’s Fury Flamin’ Hot Salsa

Salsa is one of the most popular condiments in the USA – consistently outselling ketchup in total dollars sold since 1992. Unfortunately when browsing the aisles at the grocery store one is usually met with only mild and perhaps some medium options, and most laden with added sugar, corn syrup, starch, preservatives, and other industrial-food additives that improve the bottom line, but not the flavor or customer experience.

My search for a very hot salsa that doesn’t have unnecessary additives led me to make a Reddit post asking for recommendations, and this sauce was one that caught my eye. Looking at the ingredients list on The Spicy Gnome’s website I saw it did in fact contain quite a bit of chile pepper, and didn’t contain anything other than wholesome all-natural ingredients, so I knew I had to order a jar.

This salsa contains a variety of chile peppers. The first ingredient by volume is even a chile pepper, rare in any salsa, and in this case the favorite of Bobby Flay, the Fresno Chile, a nice medium-low head pepper with great flavor. Unnamed ‘red peppers’ come next, as well as some bells for sweetness, jalapenos (because why not) but then the serious fun begins: Trinidad Scorpions, Ghost Peppers, Carolina Reapers, and Ghost and Red Savina Habanero pepper powders on top of it all, it’s like a greatest hit list of the “world’s hottest pepper” over the past 20 years. In addition to the peppers you have the ingredients you’d expect in a salsa – tomatoes, garlic, salt, vinegar, and some lime juice.

The flavor is very pepper-forward. The super hot chiles pack a big punch, though the fruity and slightly smoky nature of the Fresnos provide the backbone to the sauce in combination with the tomatoes, which are a natural pairing with Fresno chiles. Despite all of the super hots this sauce doesn’t contain any bitterness of astringency, and the only sweetness comes from the subtle natural sweetness of the chiles, tomato, and lime juice, so the overall flavor is quite savory, a welcome change from most commercially available salsas. The various peppers used add their fruity, smoky, vegetal, and floral flavor notes to create a symphony of flavors. This also has a formidable heat punch, but one that doesn’t overpower the flavor, and just encouraged me not to plow through an entire bag of chips at once. This salsa also has a very nice chunky consistency, something I prefer to overly smooth or blended salsas.

Another big plus is that this is an all-natural salsa, with no added thickeners, sugar, stabilizers, or artificial preservatives.

I can easily recommend this salsa if you’re looking for something savory with a huge heat punch. This is multiple levels above the “hot” Tostitos salsa you may see at the grocery store, just be warned you do need some heat tolerance to fully appreciate it.

Ingredients: Fresno Peppers, Tomatoes, Red Peppers, Tomato Paste, Lime Juice, Bell Peppers, Distilled Vinegar, Jalapenos, Garlic, Salt, Trinidad Scorpion Peppers, Ghost Peppers, Carolina Reaper Peppers, Olive Oil, Ground Red Savina Habanero Pepper, Dried Ground Ghost Pepper

Heat Level: 7/10. This is a salsa that punches right up with some of the super-hot hot sauces.