Trader Joe’s Yuzu Hot Sauce

The pros:  Trader Joe’s Yuzu Hot Sauce tastes like lemon and can compliment anything lemon based by adding a touch of heat.

The cons: Trader Joe’s Yuzu Hot Sauce is a bit pricier than other hot sauces.

The verdict:  For $4.99 this is a hot sauce that packs a bit of a punch as long as you shake the bottle. This does not have the same flavor as other hot sauces. This is much more like a citrus flavored hot sauce. The citrus used here is a lemon.

When mixed with other food items like mayo to make an aioli the flavor mellows and it a very pleasant heat. When put on top of items it is in the category of medium hot, but not too hot. If you just dump this on yes, it will be hot. The cap is well designed to ensure that you can control how much comes out of the small bottle and in any hot sauce always start with a little and then you can add more.

In terms of thickness, this is in the same level of thickness as a Tobasco sauce so it is quite liquidy. This is much thinner than a sriracha so add a little first and adjust as necessary. I’ve used this with Trader Joe’s Uncooked Wild Blue Shrimp and with the incredibly bland Trader Joe’s Carrot and Pea Vegetable Patties. I wanted to finish those patties and get that out of my freezer finally. I found them pretty bland and have been struggling to come up with ideas to jazz them up.

Tonight I put some of the Yuzu on it and they were much improved (which means less salt). For those of you learning your way around the kitchen or if you are an expert it’s worth repeating. If something is bland or flat tasting an acid will help to lift up flavors. In this case the Yuzu did exactly that.

I think there can be a lot of good uses with this from adding a bit of kick to a salad dressing to an aoili, to fish and chicken. Anything where lemon would be used this could be used to add a kick. When I run out (it might be a while) I’d buy this again.

The bottle:

The nutritional information and the ingredients:

What the liquid looks like:

Would I buy this again?  It’s going to take some time to use this bottle of Trader Joe’s Yuzu Hot Sauce and figure out some uses for the bottle. Chicken and fish seem to come to mind first, but I found it to be a nice change from dousing everything in sriracha. Otherwise, my answer is yes. It’s a really nice change from the typical hot sauce.

Want to see more items I’ve reviewed from Trader Joe’s? Click on Thoughts & Reviews of Trader Joe’s for a searchable list.

Did you try it? What do you put this on? Let me know what you think in the comments section!

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