Marshall’s Haute Sauce – Heatonist #5 Birdseye Charred Chive Dulse

Bitter: ⭐⭐✰✰✰

Salty: ⭐⭐⭐⭐✰

Sour: ⭐⭐⭐✰✰

Sweet: ⭐✰✰✰✰

Umami: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Heat: ⭐⭐✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰

Quick Flavor Notes: Meaty, Umami, Salty, Sour, Briny

Texture: Medium-Thin and smooth

Recommended: Yes

Ingredients: Rice vinegar, distilled vinegar, liquid aminos (vegetable protein from NON-GMO soybeans and purified water), organic white miso (soybeans, rice koji (rice, koji spores [aspergillus oryzae]), sea salt, water), roasted garlic, lime juice, pineapple, charred garlic chives, Bird’s Eye chile peppers, rice cooking wine (water, rice, salt), coriander seeds, ginger, black sesame seeds, Jacobsen sea salt, dulse seaweed

This is a bottle that killed three stones with one bird for me. I’ve been wanting to try Marshall’s Haute Sauce for quite a while as well as some of the Heatonist’s special anniversary hot sauces. Dulse, a type of red seaweed common in coastal Northern Europe, has also been on my radar.

Marshall’s Haute Sauce out of Portland, OR has a view on hot sauce making I can really get behind. Founder Sarah Marshall focuses on the fresh and quality ingredients in the PNW region, of which there are many, in crafting the company’s sauces. They make their sauces in small batches and even run canning classes in the local community to help promote sustainability and reducing food waste. This particular sauce was originally made for Heatonist’s 5th Anniversary in 2020 but proved so popular that Marshall’s Haute Sauce still sells it on their own website.

According to the bottle the goal with this sauce was to pair Southeast Asian flavors with those of the Pacific Northwest. Those Southeast Asian flavors are represented with Thai chiles being the heat source as well as a bevy of Asian supporting ingredients such as rice wine vinegar, rice wine, miso, and liquid aminos. Liquid Aminos may sound like something a body builder might inject himself with, but they’re a gluten free soy sauce alternative that’s similar to Japanese tamari except instead of being made from fermented soybeans its extracted from fresh soy protein. The other interesting ingredient in this is Dulse. Dulse is a red seaweed native to Northern Europe and the coastal PNW that has a unique smoky meaty flavor and is often considered the vegan bacon of the sea. There is a salty briny aroma to this sauce and the texture is medium-thin and smooth.

On the first taste – wow, this stuff is a major umami bomb. Salty, briny, intensely savory, tangy, sour, strangely meaty despite the thin texture, earthy, smoky, Marshall’s Haute Sauce Heatonist #5 Birdseye Charred Chive Dulse is a flavorful assault on the tastebuds. Thai chiles have never been my favorite, I find they often have a subtly ‘off’ sour flavor, but they work very well in this sauce. The natural sourness from the vinegars and lime juice compliments that flavor element of the Thai chiles and adds brightness to this sauce that has so many dark earthy umami-rich ingredients. The array of spices in this sauce including mustard, coriander, sesame, and ginger don’t come out to me individually but do give an exotic spice backdrop to the sauce that livens it up even more. The dulse seaweed does bring a briny flavors forward. There are a few sweet ingredients including pineapple and sweetened cooking wine but I don’t pick up any sweetness in the actual sauce. With so many salty ingredients perhaps they’re there to help provide balance to prevent salt overload. Speaking of salt, this bottle is strangely free of any nutritional information so I don’t know what the sodium level actually is, but I’d say it’s north of what most craft sauces are, but still less than notorious salt-bomb hot sauces such as Trader Joe’s Crunchy Garlic Jalapeno Hot Sauce.

With a vaguely Asian flavor profile to this sauce I tried it out first in a bowl of instant ramen where I found it was a great pairing – upping the umami flavor and making it taste much richer and more satisfying while also adding brightness from the vinegar. The bottle suggested using it in sauteed cabbage or bok choy, neither of which I had handy, but I did have broccoli rabe which I typically make just with olive oil and garlic. Adding this sauce into the mix in the sauté pan as well elevated the final result. It still tasted like the Italian version I usually make, just with more depth and a meaty richness that helped provide more contrast against the natural bitter flavors of the rabe. One of the more surprising and great pairings with this was hot dogs. I had some leftover ones I’d grilled on Memorial Day weekend and found this sauce is a great pal of tube based meat, which makes sense as it has many similar flavor profiles to mustard.

I’m happy to recommend Marshall’s Haute Sauce Heatonist #5 Birdseye Charred Chive Dulse. It’s much more flexible than you’d think for an Asian inspired sauce, it’s one of the most umami-rich hot sauces I’ve ever tried, and it uses high quality ingredients and is just plain delicious.