Old El Paso Red Enchilada Sauce - Mild

Ooh, now my store has a mild version of this sauce in addition to the medium! I'm usually a medium-preferrer, but I had to try all the options of course. This tastes very similar to the medium one, as it happens, but is a little less spicy. Shocking! Actually, I might switch to mild due to the limitations of my physical form, so it's nice that this is an option. The decaf of red sauce. 

Overall
Cost: 6/10
Taste: 7/10 

Old El Paso Red Enchilada Sauce

Huh! I was sad that this was the only option at my store, because I'm a La Victoria user for most mexi-sauces, and this also has sugar in it (and "spices", always mysterious and possibly allergenic). But it tasted, honestly, surprisingly good. Used it for a slow-cooker chicken enchilada deal and I was pleased and impressed. A little spicy but nothing crazy; smells like taco sauce (which I never use) but tastes much better. Like, dare I say, enchilada sauce. How 'bout that. Sorry for Old El Doubting.

Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 7/10

Ortega Creamy Queso Sauce

Sadly I must give this a heavy Nay-so. It's bad, guys. And I love queso! This tastes like the horrible little tostitos queso that I gave away a few months ago. Or the weird alfredo pasta roni with a chemical tomato vibe. Just terrible. Not cheesy, but artificial and toxic to the taste.

Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 3/10

Sweet Baby Ray's Honey Barbecue Sauce

This is my platonic ideal of BBQ sauce! Well, at least, I think it is. I never know if this is it, or the regular (non honey) flavor is. But it's definitely not the weird sugar free Ray's Original Version, I can tell you that much!! This has plenty of sweet sweet corn syrup (ew), but crucially, no sucralose or allulose or other -loses that might exist. 

The taste is BBQ. The texture is sauce. Actually, it's a little bit hickory for my preference, so maybe a fast food packet is my platonic BBQ ideal, but you can't buy that at the store, so this'll surely do.

Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 7/10

Tostitos Toppers Fiesta Ranch Sauce & Dressing

OK, I kind of knew I wouldn't love this, and I was right. It smells gross and tasted OK on super spicy rice, but if you actually taste it, it tastes just like ranch dressing, with a very very subtle cheese-y undernote. I'm not loving it on chips and salsa (you need a lot of salsa), it really needs to be paired with something super spicy, I think. Maybe buffalo!?

Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 4/10

McCormick Beef Gravy

This was the only soy-free beef gravy in any form I could find at my store, even though there were dozens of them. Maybe that's why I always thought brown gravy was "gross" as a kid. Anyway, maybe not though, because although this was allergy-free, I didn't like it very much. I got it to put over fries with cheese (to do my best poutine-at-home), but it mainly made the fries damp and a little weird/salty? It didn't do what I was hoping. But, it is a safe brown gravy, and very easy to heat up (you can microwave it!), so I appreciate those aspects at least.

Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 5/10

Tabasco Original Red Hot Sauce

What a very cute and small bottle of hot sauce! The good news is, their website makes clear that this contains no nuts. The bad news is, I do not like this hot sauce. The good news is, it was a very small bottle! While I do really like the Victoria's Hot Sauce I've been pouring on quesadillas all year, this is very different in terms of flavor. Less bright, less tomato-y, less sweet? More burnt. Also, it really was hot (spicy) compared to what I'm used to! Maybe it's just a familiarity thing. In any case, I did not like this on my taco.

Overall
Cost: 6/10
Taste: 4/10

Campbell’s Skillet Sauces - Chicken Marsala

Was this good? Definitely not. Was this better than I'd feared it would be? Yes. It smelled like marsala (wine+mushroom), which is nice, but it didn't taste like mushroom or garlic at all, and it had too much tomato in it (in my opinion, any is too much). No soy protein though! And easy to use. But I would not get this again, it was very "generic wet". 

Overall
Cost: 6/10
Taste: 5/10

Sriracha Hot Chili Sauce

Look, is Sriracha overrated? In my view, yes - or at least it was when I was in college, it seems like the hype may have died down. But that doesn't mean it's not good. It's a spicy chili sauce, a little bit sweet, a little bit salt/vinegar/garlicy too, but mainly you just taste chilis. I like it on sandwiches, or even with scrambled egg and pepper (new discovery!) or even mixed with mayo (shocking discovery). Not a big fan of it on pasta or rice dishes, even "asian" ones. Used to get it on my Roots bowls (veg/grain bowls) which added a nice kick of heat but also seemed to give me terrible stomach cramps. So I guess moderation is key. It doesn't seem that hot to me when I'm eating it, but after I'm done I always get a bit sniffly and mouth-burny. In a good way, though. Probably good if you have a cold! I think this is also called Rooster sauce but that's silly, it's not made of rooster.

Overall
Cost: 7/10
Taste: 6/10

Lee Kum Kee Plum Sauce

I tagged this as Chinese, but to be totally honest, I'm not totally sure what kind of cuisine this sauce is associated with. Unlike their tasty beef teriyaki sauce, this didn't taste like any dish I'd had in my youth. So, I wasn't sure what to expect with this or even really what to do with it, since I don't eat egg rolls and I never used the packets of duck sauce (which I imagine is similar?) I got as a kid with chinese food.
I decided to just put it on some grilled chicken (is grilled even the word? pan-cooked chicken), over rice. So, one breast of chicken, a little less than half the jar of sauce, one econo portion of rice. When cooked, it was quite sweet, a little vinegary, and not especially spicy. I didn't love it or hate it. I was very glad that I cooked it though - I think spending 3-4 minutes cooking the sauce onto the chicken makes the flavor much better, sweeter, more chinese-y, something. Just plain out of the jar the flavor was pretty strong, in a not great way. I might try repeating this but adding a bit of soy sauce to it? I'm not sure, it's already salty, but I didn't LOVE what I did with this so i don't know if I want to just repeat it, though I might. I also considered adding this to veg but I don't think that'd be good, but with chicken or I guess duck this seems like a fair accompaniment.

Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 5/10

Uncle Dougie's Wicked Good Wing Marinade

I think "wicked good" might be a bit of an exaggeration, but then again, this was my first time making my own chicken wings, so I also learned that I don't love homemade chicken wings (or any chicken wings that aren't slathered in BBQ sauce). I followed the bottle instructions and let these marinate for about 30 minutes (it smelled very vinegary, like Easter!) and then cooked them for 1hr+ in the oven. First of all, that was way too long and they were burnt. Second of all, the marinade didn't leave much flavor behind, just a vague hot sauce/spicyness. I didn't like it one bit. And it didn't seem like it'd be tasty to pour more on top. I need BBQ sauce! This is for people who love basic plain chicken wings I think. :6



Overall
Cost: 4/10 (I used 1/3 of the bottle, which costs about 5-6$)
Taste: 4/10