Melinda’s Louisiana Red Cayenne Hot Sauce Review

Melinda’s Louisiana Red Cayenne

Back a dozen (and change) years ago, when I started this blog, there were two names floating around, getting a lot of attention, this and Marie Sharp’s, but neither of them had a sauce I could consider getting, despite me checking out the entire lines of both, as they tend to be onion happy. Sharp’s is still, to my knowledge, that way, but Melinda’s has seemingly decided to make an overt push to become a much larger mass market commercial company, branching out into various sub-lines, and adding a lot more sauces to the line-up. I believe this may be one of those, as I don’t recall seeing it in the past.

Flavor-wise, it bears out the mass market push I was mentioning. This is a very tame sauce, with very pedestrian flavors and nearly all the hallmark edges of a Louisiana-style sauce, which the label is at minimum referencing, sanded off. The first hit is still vinegar, but it is considerably blunted. So, too, the Cayenne, which also has been neutered of any heat. This is a slightly salty taste and there is a definitely a strong note of garlic as well. This one is fairly heavy on xanthan gum, to the point where it reminded me more of ketchup, texture-wise, than either a Louisiana-style Cayenne or what I think it’s closer to, the spin-off Cajun style. In terms of flavor, it is definitely more Cajun style, but, the flavors are kind of amalgamated and meshed together into a much softer approach than we normally see in hot sauce.

That does not mean this sauce is by any means not. Indeed, I find the flavor to be pretty pleasant and think this would make a fantastic point of entry sauce (again, think mass market) for anyone just off-handedly picking it up. Perhaps that is the intent of it, and with that dulling down, this does lend a certain amount of flexibility to the sauce that might otherwise not be there. This, in conjunction with the thickness of the sauce and tendency to hold in place, makes it useful on pizza, for instance, where normally a Louisiana-style would not go. It does cover most of the usual stuff there, so breakfast and fried foods as well, even to ramen, where I would also personally not use Louisiana-style. All of those things work against it, for me, anyway, when it comes to richer dishes, like mac & cheese.

Bottom line: A very solid, very middle-of-the-road, albeit thicker consistency than usual, approach to a Cajun style hot sauce, only sans heat. Chileheads can skip this one, but it could serve a great entry point for the chile curious. 

Breakdown:

           Heat level: 0
           Flavor: 7
           Flexibility: 7
           Enjoyment to dollar factor: 9

Overall: 6