There is no bad salsa or hot sauce, just an opportunity for improvement.
Did you ever buy a jar of salsa that you had not tried before only to be disappointed after dipping a chip in to sample it? Well fret not because you didn’t waste your money on that jar, you just bought an ingredient that will be improved upon or used in a different capacity. Just like buying jarred or canned spaghetti sauce that you know you will be gussying up before serving, a salsa that does not meet your standards simply offers an opportunity to create something new and better.
I recently bought the Rojo Taquera Sauce from Sprouts that I had not seen before, and I thought it would be worth trying because I have enjoyed several of the selections on their shelves. (No, they didn’t misspell Taqueria. Taquera is the female version of Taquero which is someone who makes tacos. End of Spanish lesson.) But after a few bites, I knew that this was not a sauce that I would be finishing up as is from the bottle.
It is somewhere between a salsa and a taco sauce and it was heavy on the tomato taste (they even referred to it as tomato sauce a few places on the bottle) and also rather thick and sticky. It was mostly acidic with a little bit of tang and almost none of the rich and spicy taste you expect from chilis de arbol which were mentioned on the bottle. I was not discouraged, though, as I immediately decided to throw a few of my own ingredients in to make it into a more palatable salsa.
I happened to have a few grape tomatoes that were starting to wrinkle a bit in the container in the fridge, but they had not gone bad yet. (Never throw those away, they are great for salsas and sauces.) I chopped those up and threw them into a bowl to get started. I also had a few mini sweet peppers in a bag that wouldn’t last more than a day or two, so I roasted those up in my air fryer (which works great for roasting chilis, more and that here) and threw them in as well. I had some chilis de arbol in the pantry and thought that they would work well because the base sauce also had them as an ingredient. I rehydrated them in some boiling water and threw them and the water in the bowl with the other ingredients. I also added a couple of tablespoons of apple cider vinegar for some tang.
To this, I added what was left of the salsa (about three-quarters of the bottle) along with two tablespoons of honey to cut the acidity of the sauce. I also added some cracked black pepper, though not any salt because the base sauce had plenty of that already. I pulled out my emersion blender and mixed everything together to get an improved bowl of salsa.
The tomatoes added some freshness to the taste while the roast chilis added some richness while also mellowing out the salsa. The chilis de arbol brought some earthiness while also amping up the heat to above the Medium level on my scale. The chili pepper water and vinegar thinned out the consistency but did not dilute the taste. The sweetness of the honey did as expected and counterbalanced the acidity of the base sauce. And I was much happier with the final product I had after my modifications.
Other things you could add include fresh or pickled peppers, cilantro, onions, garlic, cumin, chili powder, lemon and/or lime, and maybe even some other salsa or hot sauce that may be sitting around in the fridge or pantry. You can keep blending and tinkering until you achieve a taste that you like, or if you can’t quite get it there then just use what you have as a marinade for chicken or beef or fish.
But in any case, there is no need to throw away salsa just because the taste doesn’t quite meet up to your standards. The same goes for hot sauce. Consider how it could be improved then start experimenting until you have something that is more edible or that can be used as a flavor enhancer. Why waste good ingredients when they can easily be repurposed into something more useful?