by Bottom Line: Tapatio is a Mexican-style hot sauce with an intense flavor and good heat, and it can be used as a topping or ingredient with plenty of dishes.
This tasty sauce has been around for a while (it started in 1971) and is quite well-known, for good reason. It packs some heat, but it won’t send the average mortal screaming from the room, and it also brings plenty of flavor. You will often see it in Mexican restaurants, but it works with many different dishes as well.
Heat-wise, Tapatio comes in around 3,000 Scoville Units which is enough to give a bit of a kick without scorching the senses. It has the expected tanginess and saltiness that you find in most hot sauces. But it also has an earthiness and smokiness to it with a hint of cumin. This is a water and salt based sauce as opposed to vinegar-based sauces like Tabasco which delivers a somewhat different, though still pleasing, taste profile. It is actually very similar in taste to Cholula (more on that one here), just a bit more intense and with more heat. I have it in my Top 10 list of go-to hot sauces, and you can see that here.
Tapatios is basically a crowd-pleaser, adding just the right amount of heat, I put it right aroiund Medium on my scale, as well as plenty of flavor. It goes particularly well with Mexican food, though it should not be limited to that cuisine. It pairs quite well with eggs and it also adds a nice twist to chicken, burgers, fish, pizza, and much more. It can also be used as an ingredient, seasoning taco meat or chili instead of or in addition to using taco seasoning and/or chili powder.
A particular favorite of mine is what I call Tapatio Scoops: fill a Fritos Scoop with the sauce and pop it in your mouth! See how many of those you can get through before the heat catches up to you! Tapatio is also particularly good in a Bloody Mary, and I recommend the recipe on the sauces website.
Tapatio got its start in 1971 when Jose-Luis Saavedra leased a small warehouse in Maywood, CA to start producing it for sale while still working a daytime job. It proved popular, mostly in Hispanic communities at first, and the business continued to grow over the years. By the late ’80s, the sauce expanded to the wider market and would become a fixture on store shelves and in many restaurants into the ’90s. The company is now celebrating 50 years of business and remains family-owned to this day.
Nutrition Info:
Ingredients: Water, red peppers, salt, spices, garlic, acetic acid, xanthan gum and sodium benzoate as a preservative
Serving Size: 1 Teaspoon
Calories: 0
Fat: 0g
Protein: 0g
Carbs: 0g
Sodium: 110mg
