Silk City Turnip The Heat Hot Sauce Review

Silk City Turnip The Heat

I can say pretty confidently that this is the only sauce I've ever had with turnips as an ingredient, let alone Gilfeather turnips and slightly less but still very confidently that it's probably the only sauce I've ever had with butternut squash as an ingredient. I'd put it fairly close to the top of the more unique and eclectic sauces in general, let alone hot sauces, that I've ever experienced.

I ordered it and went into it not quite knowing what to expect. Jeff at Silk City is one of the more inventive and creative minds churning sauces out there, but with wild experimentation, such as seems his wont, it's not always a sure bet that the end result is going to be great or even good. To be sure, Silk City is one of my favorites and the only sauce company where I make it a point to do an annual sauce buy (or at least check out the offerings), and they've been in the running for SOTY at least a couple good times now, including this year, 2024, but failure is a part of all experiments and some of these concoctions work better than others.

This one is almost a case in point, but the novelty of it is almost enough by itself to win me over. Flavor and texture-wise, this seems almost more a vegetable puree than an actual sauce, though I suppose you could make the case that is the same for perhaps most hot sauces, but this one seems a bit more hard over towards the vegetable side. In any case, by itself, I think it's more on the just okayish side. I didn't really enjoy it much on the usual meats, but switching over to veggies was more the good move here. It is quite nice on vegetables similar to the ones in the bottle, so things like potatoes, sweet potatoes, butternut squash, carrots, turnips, parsnips, etc., all do quite nicely, as well as on things like cooked peppers. While it doesn't list out the exact peppers, other than to say it is a "blend" on the website, it strikes me that there's enough heat here that, unless I miss my guess, one of those is Habanero.

This sauce seems, beyond where I mentioned it, more intended for things like creamy soups or gravies or maybe a creamy dish, like mac & cheese. Obviously I didn't get to it around Thanksgiving time, but I could definitely see it working there and intend on testing it in as many of those as possible. This is a pretty enjoyable sauce to play around with, to see where it works and where it doesn't (cruciferous vegetables, for instance), and that aspect I've enjoyed quite a lot. 

Bottom line: This is one where your mileage will definitely vary, depending on what you enjoy in a sauce and what you want out of it. If it's creativity along with a satisfying, but relatively low heat, this is a good one to try out. 

Breakdown:

           Heat level: 2
           Flavor: 6
           Flexibility: 4
           Enjoyment to dollar factor: 8

Overall: 5