by Bottom Line: The Disha Hot™ Hot Sauce from Taco Bell offers a tasty yet familiar sauce with very little heat.
Taco Bell is known for adding “new” items that are often just remixes of existing ingredients that are already in the kitchen. But when they introduced Disha Hot™ Hot Sauce, based on a recipe made by musician Omar Apollo’s family, I thought it might bring a fresh twist to their lineup of sauces. According to the press release, it “packs a rich, smoky balance of heat and flavor in every drop,” and it will be available in stores for the dreaded limited time only.
I happened to be driving by my local Taco Bell at lunchtime the other day, so I stopped in to try the new sauce. I ordered a regular crispy taco, a Chicken Cantina taco, and Nacho Fries, along with three packets to see how the sauce paired with different items. Note that they charge twenty cents per packet unless you get it in the Disha Hot Sauce Meal Deal.
The sauce by itself has a tomatoey tang with some earthiness. It also has a little bit of sweetness, though I didn’t really detect much smokiness that they mentioned. It’s very much a salsa-type sauce (as opposed to Taco Bell’s usual hot sauces), and it reminded me of Pace Picante. As for the heat, it comes to Mild at best on my scale, though it did deliver a bit of a tingle.
I dipped my Nacho Fries into the sauce, and that worked pretty well, acting like salsa ketchup. I added one packet into the cheese sauce that comes with the fries, but that amped up the tang a bit too much. I also added some to my Chicken Cantina taco, and the taste was okay, but it turned into salsa overload because they already have avocado sauce on that. It worked well with the crispy taco and did not take over the flavor like Taco Bell’s Fire or Diablo sauces can. I liked it best as a dipping sauce for the fries, but I’m thinking this one would also pair well with their breakfast items.
Ultimately, the Disha Hot™ Hot Sauce is not something I would go out of my way to get again. This may be based on a family recipe, but I imagine it comes out better when cooked at home. Packaged into convenient pouches, it takes on an industrial salsa taste without much uniqueness or heat. That’s not to say it’s bad, just nothing that stands out or lives up to the hype. It complements the items it’s added to without overwhelming them, but I wouldn’t say it’s worth the extra cost. Now, how about bringing back the Lava Sauce? Because that’s worth a trip to the drive-thru!
