Our tour of the hot sauces from Urban Chefs continues with a stop for the Soulvicious Hot Sauce, a chocolate habanero hot sauce with a twist. Our experience with chocolate habanero sauces have been uniformly positive, so we expected no different with this one. Usually, they have a tendency to be slightly hotter than plain ol’ habanero sauces, but this one didn’t seem like it would be from its ingredients:

Ingredients: vinegar, water, garlic, chocolate habanero mash, salt, lemon extract, sugar, habanero powder, xantham gum

While this list is mostly all-natural stuff, lemon extract and sugar are not some of the usual suspects in our most often used habanero sauces. Lime is a more common taste combination with hot sauces, but we suspected that lemon would offer some of that same acrid tartness when combined with the vinegar to keep this sauce ‘fresh.’

First impression: Joe spoke with Anthony from Urban Chefs about his label issues mentioned in the last review, and he assured us that they would improve. At first glance, this bottle is a far cry better than some of the others…but is still somewhat pixelated and in need of improvement. The darker label colouring with fire accents is an improvement, though. Like with other CaJohn-influenced sauces, there is minimal separation of the ingredients with prolonged standing, and it easily re-mixes without much effort. Consistency-wise, it’s fairly thin and liquidy…which pours out fairly quickly even with one of those annoying nipple-thingies on the bottle. We’ve been feeling a little lazy with the camera lately, so no pictures to show about how the sauce looks.

Taste: The straight taste is at first tart & vinegary, followed by the familiar habanero taste (and burn). To me, the lemon extract is noticeable. Not in a bad way, mind you, but it’s also not a background taste like lime juice is in many hot sauces that use it. Nice garlic taste without being too overpowering as well. The heat is moderate, compared with many chocolate habanero sauces, and I’ll call it an 8/10. In a way, it reminds me of a Louisiana-style hot sauce using the habs instead of cayenne or tabasco peppers.

While it tastes pretty good poured on foods, its liquidy consistency has its limitations. Certain sauces are ones that you really want to stick to your food rather than end up as a puddle in the middle of your plate. This sauce is more the puddle variety, but that’s OK as long as you know that before you pour some out. Added liberally to soups & stews, it adds good habanero taste & heat without polluting the taste all that much. That garlic and lemon I mentioned above doesn’t figure in so much when mixed. I really liked it in starchier dishes or ones with more substance to them. For example, this sauce was heavenly in jambalaya and added that extra oomph it so desperately needed. In some heavier/creamier dishes, it seemed to do well also, and allowed the flavors to come out better as well. In some chicken a la king (even made in a hospital cafeteria), it made even that concoction one I would do again using this sauce. The rest was hit-or-miss, as this sauce had some versatility but not as much as some habanero sauces that are available. Try as you go, and keep in mind that your mileage may vary with this one.

Overall recommendation: The Soulvicious Hot Sauce is a little bit of a different animal than most of the chocolate habanero sauce we’ve tried recently, and that’s a good thing. I’ll stick with the notion that it’s a little more a Louisiana-style habanero sauce rather than a traditional habanero sauce, especially with the prominent vinegar elements and simple yet effective ingredients. Do I say this also because it’s good on Cajun food? Perhaps, but it was pretty decent on other stuff as well. It’s well worth giving a try. Enjoy!