Bitter: ⭐⭐⭐✰✰
Salty: ⭐⭐✰✰✰
Sour/Tangy: ⭐⭐✰✰✰
Sweet: ⭐✰✰✰✰
Umami: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Heat: ⭐✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰
Quick Flavor Notes: Earthy, umami, rich, bitter
Recommended: Yes
Texture: Medium-thin and smooth
Ingredients: Vegetable Stock (water, white wine, carrot stock, onion stock, tomato paste, lemon juice, celery stock, sea salt, roasted garlic powder, onion powder, celery powder, spices), Red Wine Vinegar, Soy Sauce (water, soybeans, wheat, salt), Roasted Red Pepper, Chipotle Pepper, Garlic, Vinegar, Onion, Canola Oil, Cayenne Pepper, Wild Mushroom Powder, Red Miso Paste (water, soy beans, cultured rice, sea salt), Chipotle Pepper Powder.
John Hard founded CaJohn’s Fiery Foods back in 1997 making it one of the earliest craft hot sauce companies on the market. While his first recipes were based on those from his Cajun friends he quickly branched out into more creative sauces to stretch the boundaries of what hot sauce could be. I’ve previously reviewed a couple of the sauces from the company that were more tradition, their Select Serrano Puree and their Small Batch Cayenne Garlic Sauce, so this time I wanted to try something that was more creative. I’ve always loved mushrooms and umami rich hot sauces so the CaJohns Wild Mushroom Hot Sauce seemed like the perfect choice.
Something that immediately struck me about the ingredients in this sauce is that it has a vegetable stock base, that’s something I don’t think I’ve ever seen before. So many sauces just use water to dilute to the desired consistency, something I personally dislike as water has no flavor. Using a stock that includes white wine, onions, celery, carrots, garlic, and umami-rich tomato paste is a great way to loosen things up while also adding flavor. Red wine vinegar is also an inspired choice as it’s more flavorful and less harsh than traditional distilled vinegar. The umami-rich ingredients don’t stop there, this sauce also features soy sauce (and from the sub-ingredients a high quality one), red miso paste, and of course the wild mushroom powder since mushrooms are an amazing source of glutamates. The peppers used are chipotles, smoked jalapenos, and cayennes. Adding some traditional aromatics like garlic and onion plus some canola oil to bring out those fat-soluble flavors and this sauce looks like it will be amazingly flavor packed. The smokiness of the chipotle peppers is prominent in the aroma but there’s also a rich background of other scents, almost like a stew. Texturally this sauce is smooth with a medium-thin consistency. While the sauce is a deep reddish brown color there’s a halo of bright red around it when you pour it in the spoon, similar to Bravado’s Aka Miso Ghost Reaper.
Thankfully despite the heavy smoke in the aroma the smoke is much more subdued in the flavor. It’s present, and you get that smoky earthy chipotle pepper flavor, but it’s not a total smoke bomb like some chipotle sauces can be. It’s also not sweet beyond the natural sweetness from the vegetables uses, something I love as many chipotle sauces can be cloyingly sweet. In fact CaJohns Wild Mushroom Hot Sauce has a surprisingly prominent bitter flavor, perhaps a bit from the smoke, a bit from the soy sauce, and a bit from some of the stock, but it’s very pleasant as it’s not a flavor that’s very present in many hot sauces beyond the natural astringency of super-hot chiles. The overall flavor is also quite earthy and complex. While I can’t pick our the individual vegetables from the stock or in the sauce blend there’s an overall sense of fullness in the taste like when you tuck into a steaming bowl of beef and barley or French onion soup that you’ve made from scratch on a chilly day. It’s rich and umami-packed with the flavor continuing to develop if you roll it around on your tongue. In some ways it’s almost closer to a steak sauce than a hot sauce but without any of that cloying sweetness that most steak sauces have. The heat is minimal in this, but that only further enhances its flexibility.
Since Wild Mushroom Hot Sauce reminded me of a steak sauce I decided to try it on steak first. With winter having given way directly to summer down here in Florida I threw a skirt steak on the grill and loved how well this sauce went with it, that deep rich umami flavor was perfect with the beef and I loved that it didn’t have the sugary element that A1 has. I also loved this sauce on burgers. I’d seem some ads for a new slider place called Mukbang Burger, which, as it turns out is just a ghost kitchen in Applebee’s. That should’ve warned me away but I was excited that perhaps I’d have something local that could give me that White Castle fix, unfortunately the burgers aren’t good and nowhere near the stratospheric heights that White Castle reaches, but this sauce did improve them greatly. The only drawback with this sauce is that it’s it’s fairly low acidity so when I tried it with a frozen fettuccini alfredo skillet meal it didn’t brighten it up as much as I’d wanted, though the smoky earthy umami elements did give it a unique spin.
CaJohns Wild Mushroom Hot Sauce is easy for me to recommend. It’s unique, it’s packed with flavor, and it’s delicious especially with meats. I also really appreciate the dedication to quality ingredients in this sauce. So many sauces that incorporate soy sauce tend to use the cheapest stuff that they can find filled with soy protein isolates or preservatives but this sauce is all natural with no artificial preservatives, colors, flavors, or thickeners.
by MagnusAlbusPater
1 Comment
Bitter: ⭐⭐⭐✰✰
Salty: ⭐⭐✰✰✰
Sour/Tangy: ⭐⭐✰✰✰
Sweet: ⭐✰✰✰✰
Umami: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Heat: ⭐✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰
Quick Flavor Notes: Earthy, umami, rich, bitter
Recommended: Yes
Texture: Medium-thin and smooth
Ingredients: Vegetable Stock (water, white wine, carrot stock, onion stock, tomato paste, lemon juice, celery stock, sea salt, roasted garlic powder, onion powder, celery powder, spices), Red Wine Vinegar, Soy Sauce (water, soybeans, wheat, salt), Roasted Red Pepper, Chipotle Pepper, Garlic, Vinegar, Onion, Canola Oil, Cayenne Pepper, Wild Mushroom Powder, Red Miso Paste (water, soy beans, cultured rice, sea salt), Chipotle Pepper Powder.
John Hard founded CaJohn’s Fiery Foods back in 1997 making it one of the earliest craft hot sauce companies on the market. While his first recipes were based on those from his Cajun friends he quickly branched out into more creative sauces to stretch the boundaries of what hot sauce could be. I’ve previously reviewed a couple of the sauces from the company that were more tradition, their Select Serrano Puree and their Small Batch Cayenne Garlic Sauce, so this time I wanted to try something that was more creative. I’ve always loved mushrooms and umami rich hot sauces so the CaJohns Wild Mushroom Hot Sauce seemed like the perfect choice.
Something that immediately struck me about the ingredients in this sauce is that it has a vegetable stock base, that’s something I don’t think I’ve ever seen before. So many sauces just use water to dilute to the desired consistency, something I personally dislike as water has no flavor. Using a stock that includes white wine, onions, celery, carrots, garlic, and umami-rich tomato paste is a great way to loosen things up while also adding flavor. Red wine vinegar is also an inspired choice as it’s more flavorful and less harsh than traditional distilled vinegar. The umami-rich ingredients don’t stop there, this sauce also features soy sauce (and from the sub-ingredients a high quality one), red miso paste, and of course the wild mushroom powder since mushrooms are an amazing source of glutamates. The peppers used are chipotles, smoked jalapenos, and cayennes. Adding some traditional aromatics like garlic and onion plus some canola oil to bring out those fat-soluble flavors and this sauce looks like it will be amazingly flavor packed. The smokiness of the chipotle peppers is prominent in the aroma but there’s also a rich background of other scents, almost like a stew. Texturally this sauce is smooth with a medium-thin consistency. While the sauce is a deep reddish brown color there’s a halo of bright red around it when you pour it in the spoon, similar to Bravado’s Aka Miso Ghost Reaper.
Thankfully despite the heavy smoke in the aroma the smoke is much more subdued in the flavor. It’s present, and you get that smoky earthy chipotle pepper flavor, but it’s not a total smoke bomb like some chipotle sauces can be. It’s also not sweet beyond the natural sweetness from the vegetables uses, something I love as many chipotle sauces can be cloyingly sweet. In fact CaJohns Wild Mushroom Hot Sauce has a surprisingly prominent bitter flavor, perhaps a bit from the smoke, a bit from the soy sauce, and a bit from some of the stock, but it’s very pleasant as it’s not a flavor that’s very present in many hot sauces beyond the natural astringency of super-hot chiles. The overall flavor is also quite earthy and complex. While I can’t pick our the individual vegetables from the stock or in the sauce blend there’s an overall sense of fullness in the taste like when you tuck into a steaming bowl of beef and barley or French onion soup that you’ve made from scratch on a chilly day. It’s rich and umami-packed with the flavor continuing to develop if you roll it around on your tongue. In some ways it’s almost closer to a steak sauce than a hot sauce but without any of that cloying sweetness that most steak sauces have. The heat is minimal in this, but that only further enhances its flexibility.
Since Wild Mushroom Hot Sauce reminded me of a steak sauce I decided to try it on steak first. With winter having given way directly to summer down here in Florida I threw a skirt steak on the grill and loved how well this sauce went with it, that deep rich umami flavor was perfect with the beef and I loved that it didn’t have the sugary element that A1 has. I also loved this sauce on burgers. I’d seem some ads for a new slider place called Mukbang Burger, which, as it turns out is just a ghost kitchen in Applebee’s. That should’ve warned me away but I was excited that perhaps I’d have something local that could give me that White Castle fix, unfortunately the burgers aren’t good and nowhere near the stratospheric heights that White Castle reaches, but this sauce did improve them greatly. The only drawback with this sauce is that it’s it’s fairly low acidity so when I tried it with a frozen fettuccini alfredo skillet meal it didn’t brighten it up as much as I’d wanted, though the smoky earthy umami elements did give it a unique spin.
CaJohns Wild Mushroom Hot Sauce is easy for me to recommend. It’s unique, it’s packed with flavor, and it’s delicious especially with meats. I also really appreciate the dedication to quality ingredients in this sauce. So many sauces that incorporate soy sauce tend to use the cheapest stuff that they can find filled with soy protein isolates or preservatives but this sauce is all natural with no artificial preservatives, colors, flavors, or thickeners.