If you love sriracha, there’s a very good chance you have a bottle of it in your kitchen right now.
And there’s a much greater chance you have a bottle of ketchup in your kitchen or, at least, several ketchup packets you’ve accumulated from generous fast food drive-thru workers who dumped an uncounted amount of ketchup packets into your bag after you said “yes” to the question, “Would you like ketchup?”
If the idea of sriracha ketchup excites you, and you have bottles of sriracha and ketchup in your kitchen, you’re better off combining the two instead of purchasing Heinz’s Sriracha Ketchup.
When I first heard about Heinz’s Sriracha Ketchup, I was excited because I love sriracha. But when I started thinking harder than anyone should over a condiment, I realized if I want a sriracha-flavored condiment for burgers, fries, hot dogs, and limp Kid Cuisine chicken nuggets, wouldn’t it be better to use sriracha over a sriracha-flavored ketchup?
Also, while thinking harder than anyone should over a condiment, I might’ve realized why Heinz decided to make a sriracha ketchup. The difference between ketchup and sriracha is as small as the difference between humans and chimpanzees. Because both condiments have salt, sugar, vinegar, garlic and/or onion, if I was somehow able to remove the tomatoes in ketchup and replace it with chili peppers, I’d have something that tastes similar to sriracha. And if I were to remove the chili peppers from sriracha and replace it with tomatoes, I’d have ketchup.
You’d think combining sriracha with ketchup would create a new Asian condiment. Well, it doesn’t. But it does taste like a old Mexican condiment — taco sauce.
Yeah, not what I was expecting.
After doing more research than anyone should on condiments, I learned it makes sense Heinz’s Sriracha Ketchup tastes like taco sauce, because the combination of ingredients IS taco sauce. Here are the ingredients found in Ortego Taco Sauce: Tomato Puree, Water, Corn Syrup, Distilled Vinegar, Salt, Modified Corn Starch, Spices, Paprika, Citric Acid, Green Chile Powder, and Onion Powder.
The back of the Heinz Sriracha Ketchup bottle says it has a “hint of garlic,” but when I ate them with fries, I couldn’t detect it. Garlic isn’t listed in the ingredients list, but I imagine it’s included with “Natural Flavorings” on the list. While I didn’t taste any garlic, I did notice the ketchup had some heat to it. Its spiciness was slightly less than the rooster sauce I have in my kitchen.
Speaking of the sriracha in my kitchen, since I have some and a bunch ketchup packets, I decided to combine the two and compare it with the Heinz Sriracha Ketchup. The condiment mixture, which had more ketchup than sriracha, had a better flavor. I could taste the garlic and it wasn’t similar to taco sauce.
Overall, if you’re a fan of sriracha, I can’t recommend Heinz Sriracha Ketchup. But if you’re a fan of taco sauce, I can recommend this.
(Nutrition Facts – 1 Tbsp – 20 calories, 0 calories from fat, 0 grams of fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 160 milligrams of sodium, 5 grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of fiber, 4 grams of sugar, and 0 grams of protein.)
Item: Heinz Sriracha Tomato Ketchup
Purchased Price: $5.19
Size: 14 oz. bottle
Purchased at: Safeway
Rating: 5 out of 10
Pros: Not horrible. Pleasant spiciness. Having sriracha in the kitchen. Having ketchup in the kitchen. Fast food drive-thru employees who make it rain ketchup packets.
Cons: Tastes like taco sauce. Lacks garlic flavor. Garlic isn’t listed in the ingredients list. Limp Kid Cuisine chicken nuggets. Thinking harder than anyone should over condiments. Mixing rooster sauce and ketchup tastes better.
