Branford’s Originals – Serrano Hot Sauce

Bitter: ⭐⭐✰✰✰

Salty: ⭐⭐✰✰✰

Sour: ⭐⭐⭐✰✰

Sweet: ⭐⭐⭐✰✰

Umami: ✰✰✰✰✰

Heat: ⭐✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰

Quick Flavor Notes: Green onion, stale, sweet

Texture: Medium and slightly slimy

Recommended: No

Ingredients: Cilantro, Green Onions, Water, Lime Juices from concentrate, Sugar, Salt, Serrano Peppers, Tomatoes, Xanthan Gum

Serrano peppers are one of my favorite types of pepper. Grassy and herbaceous with a nice medium level of heat when green and developing a subtle sweetness and earthiness when red, they’re like an upgraded jalapeno. Branford’s Originals, out of Hialeah, FL, says that they make sauces based on their grandmother’s recipes. I’ve previously enjoyed their Extra Hot Habanero Hot Sauce which I found both delicious and surprisingly hot for a habanero sauce. With my previous experience I was excited to see what they’d do with one of my favorite peppers.

I admittedly grabbed this bottle off of the shelf at Publix without paying close attention to the ingredients (and with the fine print on bottles these days it’s dang hard to read them without taking a photo with your phot first and blowing it up). Had I done so I may have been tempted to pass on the sauce just because of the dismal placement of the peppers – all of the way down the list after the lime juice, sugar, and salt. With cilantro and green onions taking the lead on the list I expected it to at least taste fresh and vibrant even if I predicted the spice level would be non-existent. The sauce has a medium consistency that’s a bit on the slimy side which is common in sauces that overuse xanthan gum. The aroma smells mostly of onions but also comes off a bit stale.

Green onions and lime juice dominate the initial flavor profile. Despite cilantro being the first ingredient on the label there’s very little fresh cilantro taste. Cilantro is one of the most difficult flavors to get to come through in a shelf-stable sauce, it tends to lose its vibrancy very quickly, so that’s no unexpected though I do hope someone eventually cracks that code. The cooked cilantro and onions do give the sauce a bit of a stale flavor. The serrano flavor, what there is, is minimal as is the heat level. If this wasn’t labeled as a serrano sauce I’d assume it was a non-spicy onion sauce. There is a bit of a cloying sweetness in the back half of the flavor profile as well, likely from the sugar mixed with the lime juice.

I tried this sauce on a variety of foods. It’s not completely objectionable with beef, pork, and some grilled shrimp, but I always found myself reaching for a different sauce after using it again. It worked best on some tacos that also had a habanero salsa on them, the habanero salsa added the heat and the other spices were enough to distract from the stale taste of this sauce. Overall I didn’t find any magic situation where this stood out.

I can’t recommend Branford’s Original Serrano Hot Sauce. While I did quite enjoy their Extra Hot Habanero Hot Sauce, this one misses the mark on heat, flavor, and freshness. Green sauces are much more difficult to get right, and they’re far from the only culprit that makes great orange and red sauces but subpar green sauces. I can recommend the Habanero variety, but give this Serrano the skip.