Bottom Line: Marie Sharp’s Habanero Pepper Sauce and Melinda’s Original Habanero XXXtra Hot Sauce have similar ingredients and similar tastes, and both should satisfy lovers of habanero sauce
You may have noticed that the bottles of Melinda’s hot sauces are starting to show up everywhere these days, and that is because the company has worked its way to the Number 2 hot sauce brand in the country. But there is another hot sauce brand out that is similar to Melinda’s, Marie Sharp’s, and it has been showing up on quite a number of shelves as well. It may not be quite as ubiquitous, but it has plenty of fans (myself included), and Marie Sharp’s Habanero Pepper Sauce is very similar to Melinda’s Original Habanero XXXtra Hot.
There is a reason for the similarities, and that is because Melinda’s Hot Sauce got its start with habaneros grown by Marie Sharp in Belize on her Melinda Estates farms. She began selling a carrot-based hot sauce using her peppers in the 1980s, and Greg and David Figueroa partnered with her to start selling it in the United States later in that decade, essentially introducing the habanero to our country. However, they eventually managed to get the international trademark for the sauce, and Marie Sharp was cut out of the business by the mid-90s. She then re-branded and started putting out hot sauce under her own name while the Melinda’s sauces continued as a separate company, sourcing their habaneros from Costa Rica.
Both brands have found much success, and there many people who are loyal to one or the other. I discovered Melinda’s back in the ‘90s and have loved it ever since. But as Marie Sharp’s started popping up, I gave that one a try and found that it compared favorably to Melinda’s. It was only just recently that I learned about the connection between the two companies, so I decided to do a comparison of the two sauces.
The ingredients for both sauces are pretty simple and basically the same: red habanero peppers, fresh carrots, onions, lime juice, vinegar, garlic, and salt. The order of ingredients for the Marie Sharp’s sauce is slightly different, but other than that it matches the Melinda’s XXXtra Hot. So they follow pretty much the same recipe, but with slight tweaks. I like both of them, but decided to test them side-by-side to see which is the best.
The Marie Sharp’s Habanero Pepper Sauce has a good red pepper taste, though it does not have too many distinct notes of habanero. Carrots are the second ingredient, but those don’t really stand out, acting more as a base that the other ingredients revolve around. The sauce has just a little bit of sweetness (likely from the carrots) that is balanced by some acid. It is not too heavy on vinegar or salt and overall everything blends together well for a balanced taste. As for the heat, this sauce approaches Hot on my scale and it lingers for a bit.
The Melinda’s Original Habanero XXXtra Hot has hints of habanero with some of the onion and garlic coming through. There is a little bit of sweet (again, probably from the carrots) and not too much vinegar, though the salt is rather notable. It’s not quite as full-flavored as Marie Sharp’s, but it is still quite tasty. It doesn’t seem too hot at first, but it sneaks up on you and eventually gets to right about the Hot level on my scale.
Both have a wide range of uses, and I find myself putting them on just about everything. Tacos or other Mexican items are an obvious choice, but these sauces also go quite well with Asian or Indian food as well as pizza, burgers, eggs, and more. And one of my favorite things to do with these sauces is to add them to queso to make a kicked-up cheese dip.
Taste-wise, the two are close enough that I call it a draw on which one I prefer. But since I know you won’t be satisfied with that answer, I will go ahead and give the edge to Marie Sharp’s. That is the more expensive of the two sauces, starting at around six bucks a bottle depending on where you find it, and gourmet shops may have it as high as ten bucks a bottle. Melinda’s, on the other hand, you can often find for five bucks a bottle or less since it has wider distribution. So it ranks in there as the value sauce, but if I see a bottle of Marie Sharp’s around the six-dollar range, I will certainly pick it up.
The two sauces I compared are among the most popular varieties put out by the two companies, but both have plenty more selections. The Marie Sharp’s Belizean Heat is a step up in the heat level and definitely worth searching out. And the Green Habanero Sauce is also quite good. (Amazon currently has a set with six of Marie Sharp’s sauces for $25 that is definitely worth the money). Melinda’s Extra Hot is a slightly toned-down version of the XXXTra Hot while their Ghost Pepper Sauce goes the other direction and has quite a kick (Amazon has a set of five sauces for $20 that acts as a good sampler). So whichever you choose, or if you just decide to get both brands, you should definitely enjoy these sauces, especially if you are a lover of habaneros like myself.