Mojo’s – What’s in Your Sauce? - Part One

Breaking it down

The Base - With many sauces such as Tabasco the base flavor is Cayenne peppers so what am I talking about when I talk about Mojos bases?

All of Mojos sauces start with a vegetable or fruit base which we then build upon with layer upon layer of taste. This is the main flavor in many of our sauces such as ‘Smokin’ Hot Heirloom’ or ‘Spooky Pumpkin’.

Other sauces are a combination of 2 components such as in ‘Going Green’ where we use tomatillos and grilled poblano‘s to form the base of the sauce. Even if the base is not mentioned in it’s name (like 3C’s- where the main flavor components are Coffee, Chocolate, and Chipotle peppers) there is still a vegetable base; Sweet Potatoes!

This means there is real food in each bottle of Mojos hot sauce! For every 12-5oz bottles (1 case) of sauce there are 1-2 Pounds of the base ingredient. Let’s do some quick Math; 5oz/bottle x 12bottles =60oz. If 16oz of that (1#) is the base ingredient of vegetables or fruit- that means that it makes up almost ¼ of the weight in each bottle!

Peppers- Many of our sauces have more than one blend of pickled peppers, all of which are preserved in-season at the height of freshness. All our peppers are Locally grown, and most of our specialty Hot Peppers are grown by small farmers that we contract with. (Check out Community &News for more info as we add it!)

At Mojos it’s not just about heat- we specially select peppers that will work with our base flavors to produce the well-balanced layered profile we are looking for.

Vinegar - This ingredient is needed for preservative and flavor- but should it be the only flavor? Mojos thinks not! We make brine which is flavored by the freshly pickled peppers, adding an additional layer of flavor and warmth. We add the Brine into each sauce with care, considering the acidity level it adds.

Water- Whenever we use vegetables and fruit there will be some amount of natural water. However, the water needs to be adjusted to the perfect consistency. Tomatoes and Tomatillos contain much more natural water than squash or sweet potatoes so each sauce will need a different amount of additional liquid in the making of the sauce. When our sauces need to be a thinner consistency, but the brine content is at the right tasting point, water is the added.

Additional Flavors- v- Flavoring additives- Some products use extracts, oils, and “natural flavors” to boost and enhance flavors in their products.

While anything claiming to be ‘natural’ does needs to come from the natural world, sometimes the sources of these “natural flavors” come from very bizarre places.

Mojos chooses instead to add real juices to our sauces when we want to add another layer of flavor - organic lemon, lime, or ginger juice, or freshly juiced parsley, cilantro, lemongrass often extracted from the fresh plant in our own kitchen.

In our opinion nothing beats the flavor of real juice!

Allergens- At Mojos we understand that many people need to be aware of potential food allergens and it is for this reason we try to limit potential allergens in all our sauces.

None of Mojos hot sauces contain soy, gluten, eggs, dairy, or nuts.

Currently, the only sauce we make which contains honey, and therefore isn’t Vegan is “Into the Blue” hot sauce. No animal products are in any other sauces.