It’s been a little while since we had some good homemade salsa, so we dove back into the fray with this new arrival from Ed & Patti Wajer called Ed & Patti’s Hot 4 Pepper Gourmet Salsa. This salsa fits into both categories with us…that of a homemade product as well as a commercially distributed one. Ed & Patti hail from the great state of Michigan, where their salsa is available at select vendors at various times throughout the year.

While not having a fancy-shmancy label, what this salsa has is some great ingredients. Four distinct kinds of chile peppers grace this salsa creation, and each of them a good choice. Not only that, but if you exclude the habanero peppers from the list, you have three varieties of peppers that you don’t often see made into a salsa. That alone has some allure. Add a little pineapple, tomato, and cilantro, and you have the makings of a delicious-sounding salsa recipe.

Opening the jar, we found a pretty thick salsa which clings heartily to your spoon or tortilla chip as you scoop it from the bottle. While we admittedly do like thinner salsas, there’s a place in our hearts and palates for the thicker ones as well. This salsa is thick with tomatoes and peppers, and has a wonderful aroma of chile peppers and spices. You can see seeds within the mix, which can clue you in to a salsa that might be hotter than the average. This salsa is their hotter variety, so we had to see what Ed & Patti’s version of hot salsa was like.

Taste: This salsa is a wolf-in-sheep’s clothing, especially when it comes to eat. We tried it separately, at different meals, but both had similar tasting perspectives. The initial taste is definitely a little sweet, and that sweetness fades to a lingering heat. Great mouth feel with the thickness of the peppers and tomatoes, and just enough cilantro to make us happy. The heat just plain builds. We each found ourselves sucking a little wind after 3 or 4 big bites, which was both unexpected and really, really good. The heat starts at about a 4/10 and builds nicely to a 7.5/10 or so the more you eat. The flavor is really unaffected by the heat, so you’ll likely enjoy this salsa regardless of your heat tolerance.

This was simply a great chip & dip salsa, and we polished off half the jar just on that alone. What little was left over after snacking was used for breakfast egg scrambles and for use with some cooked Italian sausage. Each usage showed off this salsa’s great flavor, and it seemed to work with about every dish we tried. Our only regret was that this salsa disappeared far too quickly once we opened the jar.

Overall recommendation: Besides being able to say whether we like or dislike a product, we often ask ourselves “Would I buy this if it was available in my local area?” Ed & Patti’s salsa would get a distinct and emphatic YES from us. This salsa is head and tails above many of the mass-market produced salsas you find in the grocery store, both in taste and in quality. If you include the fact that it has a delectable heat level, we call this salsa a winner. The cool part will be finding more stuff to eat this salsa with than just tortilla chips…it’s that good. Enjoy!

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