Hillside Harvest Pineapple Fresno Hot Sauce Review

Hillside Harvest Pineapple Fresno

As I may have mentioned in the past, Fresnos are one of my favorite pepper types. I don’t really love eating raw pods particularly, but that is not the case with Fresnos, where I will generally get those when they are available and keep getting them until they’re not. Discovering my fondness for them was something for which I’m eternally happy and after discovering that glory, I no longer look past those bottles on the shelf, even though I know the heat charge is going to be relatively tame, at best, unless there are other, hotter, pods at play in the mix.

Here, we have basically 4 ingredients total. Pineapple (probably juice), vinegar, Fresnos, salt. I can admire a sauce that is pure and simple, as long as it is also flavorful. This sauce is a gorgeous slightly reddish orange, and the flavor is as lively and vibrant as the color. It is, however, a touch more astringent than I would like, as I always inevitably feel that fruit-based sweet hots should be sweet. This is not a sweet sauce (definitely could have used a hit of sugar) and is a bit thinner than others in that category. The way it holds to the side of the bottle, along with those factors, makes me think this is probably pineapple juice as the main ingredient, though it is listed as pineapple. I also wish the Fresnos were a bit more forward in the mix, as in before the vinegar, but the flavor of pineapple and Fresno is a great combination.

As with most sauces that use pineapple, this works nicely with fried foods. I think it is a strong testament to the power of the Fresnos that even as astringent as this is, I still think it works fairly well on pizza as well, but flexibility overall is a bit low for this, as the food is generally going to need to be able to accommodate both fruit and heavy vinegar aspects. Heat-wise, Fresnos are not ever going to deliver much in the way there, so the challenge here will not be from heat. Had the vinegar been dialed back and/or some sugar added and the Fresnos been a bit more forward in the flavor, this would have been among the best in this category. As it is, I’d still put it in the top third, though towards the bottom of that third.

Bottom line: A solid addition to the pineapple hot sauces out there, using one of the best-tasting pods, though delivering precious little in the way of heat.

Breakdown:

           Heat level: 1
           Flavor: 8
           Flexibility: 4
           Enjoyment to dollar factor: 6

Overall: 5