Saucy Gourmet – Habanero Salsa
Bitter: ⭐✰✰✰✰
Salty: ⭐⭐⭐✰✰
Sour: ⭐✰✰✰✰
Sweet: ⭐⭐✰✰✰
Umami: ⭐⭐✰✰✰
Heat: ⭐✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰
Quick Flavor Notes: Tomatoey, garlicky, marinara-ish
Texture: Thick and chunky
Ingredients: Diced Tomatoes, Onions, Lime Juice, Cilantro, Habanero Peppers, Kosher Salt, Garlic
Recommended: Conditional
Saucy Gourmet is the brainchild of chef David Blonsky who found that his homemade salsas were so popular in the restaurants he worked in that they could become their own business. Always on the lookout for another delicious hot salsa I stumbled up on this gar on the shelves of my local Publix. Catching my with its claims of being hot (a rarity on grocery store shelves) I checked out the ingredient label and was so pleased to see it free of unnecessary filler, junk, and artificial ingredients that I had to grab a bottle.
While the habaneros are unfortunately pretty far down in the ingredients list everything else in the salsa looks right – tomatoes, onions, lime juice, cilantro, salt, and garlic. The texture is nice and chunky, my preference for salsas, with a savory tomato aroma. You can see bits of real cilantro leaves in the sauce which is always a plus in my book.
The flavor on Saucy Gourmet Habanero Salsa surprised me. While it doesn’t list the tomatoes or any other ingredients as being roasted there’s a definite roasted or long-cooked flavor to this salsa. It straddles the line between a Mexican salsa and an Italian-American Sunday tomato gravy. That’s not unpleasant, but it’s not the flavor profile I was expecting. Alas the “hot” on the label is incredibly misleading. There’s no real heat to speak of in this salsa. It’s considerably milder than even Tabasco or Texas Pete. There’s also no real habanero flavor to be found, it’s as if the habaneros were perhaps gently dipped in the salsa for a few minutes then removed before bottling. Fortunately the rest of the flavor profile is pretty nice. I do wish there was more fresh cilantro flavor, but there’s a nice savoryness from the onions and garlic and despite the odd slow-cooked marinara flavor it’s a good natural tasting salsa.
I appreciate the all natural ingredients and the choice to not load this up with starch and other nonsense that salsas don’t need or want. At the same time I feel that if you’re going to call your salsa hot it should at least have some heat. This isn’t even non-chile-head hot, it’s just flat out mild. Because of that I’ll give a conditional recommendation – it tastes good for what it is, it just needs a ton more habanero content if they’re going to call it a hot salsa. This salsa is all natural with no artificial preservatives, colors, flavors, or thickeners.
