Our Whole Foods isn’t in my neighborhood, but I had lunch over there yesterday and a few minutes to explore. Came out with, among other things, a 16-oz. jar of 365 Whole Foods Market Organic Thick & Chunky Hot Salsa for $3.61. Aaron and I checked it out for an afternoon snack today.
So what do we have?
Ingredients (“organic” precedes everything but salt on the label): Diced tomatoes, tomato puree, jalapeno peppers, distilled white vinegar, onion, dried onion, cayenne pepper powder, salt, natural flavor, and garlic powder.
This reads promisingly, with no water at all (except to turn tomato paste into puree) and vinegar ahead of all of the vegetables except onion.
The salsa is on the thick side of the middle and an appealing bright red, with fairly robust chunks of tomato evident. Heat hits nearly immediately—that’s the cayenne—with jalapeno smoldering on the back end and assisting the persistence, which is significant for a mainstream salsa. Though this is not going to hurt anyone for hours, it is considerably hotter than Pace and Old El Paso products marked HOT. Proceed with caution.
There is a bit of sweetness up front that fades quickly. (There are no added sweeteners.) Though there is a robust tomato flavor, there are only hints of jalapeno, onion, and garlic. There are essentially no other gustatory notes. Saltiness is appropriate.
Whether this salsa’s straight-line flavor is good or bad depends on your wants and needs, I suppose. It’s a competent chip accompaniment with somewhat surprising heat, but that’s all of the excitement. There aren’t any intriguing spice side roads (but neither is there anything here to irritate your cilantro-tastes-soapy friends).
It’s organic, if that’s important to you. It’s not terribly expensive. And it’s a solid performer. I would eat this again, but I wouldn’t seek it out.
6/10
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