Diposity

Dip-OSS'-ity

What is this term diposity? Well, to be honest, it's a term my son and I coined when describing a salsa's ability to cling effortlessly to a tortilla chip.  It's a good feature to have in a salsa or dip of any kind because who wants to be that guy with the dip stain on his shirt?

I wanted to clear this up because you will often see me use the term in my reviews. Now you will know what I'm speaking of.

Kylito's Salsa (Original)

This version of Kylito's Original Salsa is labeled as "Medium". As is often the case, I found this salsa to be extremely mild. I am not one of those people who can just munch down on a raw Habanero either, but I just found this very mild.

Texture wise, this is nothing to write home about. There is very little texture to this. It's as if they took a picante sauce and blended it into a smoothie. Occasionally, you can spot a tomato seed or two but other than this, it's pretty lackluster.

The flavor was okay. It actually reminded my son and I of the salsa from many of the local Mexican restaurants. They aren't very good (I don't live in Southern Cali any longer) and this reminded us of their table salsa, which you can easily drink. Not off-putting, just a bit boring. Due to its texture, the diposity was pretty good.

This was purchased at Walmart in a 16 oz. jar for $2.98.

I would personally not be buying this one again. Here is the nutritional info:

Kylito's website can be found here: https://kylitos.com/

Texas Texas Roasted Garlic & Serrano (Restaurant Style)

The salsa so nice, they named it twice!

This Texas Texas Roasted Garlic & Serrano salsa was purchased from Walmart where it was $2.48 for the 16 oz. jar. It is visually an attractive salsa and seems to possess features to please many folks, such as "Gluten Free", "No Sugar Added", "No MSG", "Low Sodium"...

Perhaps they should have added some gluten or MSG because, unfortunately, there was low flavor as well. The salsa is labeled as Medium but seems to be very mild. I did not detect a lot of flavors. It was almost like eating straight tomato sauce. After eating about 6 oz., there was still very little indication of heat or flavor.

If it's any consolation to the product, the texture was nice and adhered well to the chip, something I call diposity. I would have been pleased had it been half as tasty as it looked. This is not one I would look for again, but I am open to trying some of their other versions. After all, not every product from any company is typically the greatest.

Nutritional info is as follows:

This salsa is distributed by Sanderson Specialty Foods, Inc. in Austin, Texas Texas  :)

Their website: https://texastexassalsa.com/

Mateo's Gourmet Hatch Chili Salsa

I purchased Mateo's Gourmet Hatch Chili Salsa at a local Walmart. Price for a 16 oz. jar is about $3.78. The price puts it in the higher realm of jarred salsas, about twice what you'd pay for something like Herdez Salsa Casera.  For this reason, I expected some good things from this salsa.  This variety is listed as "Medium" on the heat spectrum and I found this to be about right.  It claims "All Natural Ingredients" and that it is Gluten Free. It is a product of Frisco, Texas, where apparently, their idea of Mexican food differs somewhat from the Southern California cuisine I am used to.

Perhaps this is partially why I did not get a great vibe from this salsa. While it is certainly not an awful flavor, I felt that there is some spice that is overpowering, something along the lines of chili powder, although I didn't see chili powder in the ingredients list unless it was disguised as "Spices". The salsa does have a nice texture and exhibits a good diposity characteristic, meaning it clings well to a chip. It also contains garlic, which I generally like.

Mateo's official website is here: http://www.mateossalsa.com/

Herdez Salsa Casera

Herdez is one of my go-to store-bought salsas. I guess I have been buying this brand for over 35 years. I first discovered it living in LA. I think it was from an Alpha Beta supermarket across the parking lot from where I worked. I didn't make a lot of money and it had a low price, so I tried it.

Herdez Salsa Casera comes in Mild, Medium, and Hot varieties and there is a very noticeable difference in these. Mild is truly very mild, medium is probably about right for most folks, and hot can often find me going for milk. I like spicy foods but sometimes I will mix these varieties to get just the heat level I want.

The difference in Herdez and lot of other brands is instantly noticeable once you pour it into a bowl or, better yet, a molcajete bowl. Not that it'll make it taste any better but it looks better than in a cereal bowl. Herdez is not as pasty as many store salsas and appears more like a fresh salsa you might make at home. The list of ingredients on the medium variety are as follows:

Tomatoes, (tomatoes, tomato juice, citric acid, calcium chloride), onions, jalapeno peppers, less than 2% of salt, cilantro, pectin, citric acid.

If memory serves me, this is a bit different than the ingredients listed 20-30 years ago. Perhaps the recipe has changed a bit or the labeling laws. If someone connected with Herdez happens upon this blog and wants clue us in, this would be great. Oh yeah, this salsa used to be labeled "Product of Mexico", but it doesn't seem to appear any longer. It would be interesting to find out if its production location has changed.

My son and I have coined the term "diposity", the ability of salsa to cling to the chip with minimal loss of the contents. Herdez, at least this Salsa Casera variety, unfortunately does not have a very good diposity rating. Due to the chunkiness of the salsa and the thinness of the base, it requires a certain amount of finesse to deliver the goods to the palette without spillage. This being said, it is one of most fresh-like salsas I have found yet in a jar.

Herdez Salsa Casera is often on sale at a local Kroger Market for around $2.09 for the 16-oz. jar. For you weight watchers, a serving is listed as 2 tablespoons at only 5 calories.

You may visit the Herdez website here: https://www.herdeztraditions.com/

[Edit]

I have since discovered many posts on the Net stating that the Herdez recipe has changed and is no longer as good as it used to be. This may well be the case since I don't recall citric acid and pectin being among the original ingredients and I'm pretty sure it used to contain Serrano peppers and not jalapeno.