Why Is There a Sauce for Everything Now?

Aug 09, 2023

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The rise of one-of-a-kind condiments is leading to an artisanal flavor revolution across the food world.

When youth program supervisor Sarah Marshall first started selling her handmade Marshall’s Haute Sauce more than a decade ago at farmers markets in Portland, Oregon, she didn’t know many other craft sauce makers in the area. Now, Marshall oversees PNW Sauce Makers, a group of more than 40 craft sauce artisans based in the Pacific Northwest.

“There are a lot more people making craft sauces since we started, but there’s also plenty of demand for it, which has been cool to see,” Marshall says. Today, she continues to sell her small-batch sauces at the Saturday morning Portland Farmers Market alongside other artisan sauce vendors, such as Blue Bully Pepper Sauce, Hot Mama Salsa, and Choi’s Kimchi Company.

Less of a competitive landscape and more of a community, PNW Sauce Makers is a hub of information, ideas, and support that not only helps build relationships among regional food artisans but also invests in local economies, bringing new life to small farmers and storefronts. Beyond Portland, Oregon, small-batch sauces have exploded over the last decade around the world.

While hot sauces are an especially big business garnering attention from restaurants, celebrities, and social media, they’re by no means the only sauce heating up the condiment aisle. Nowadays, every diner is seemingly identifying as "sauce queen," and it feels as if there's a saucy condiment for everything on the plate.

Take, for example, Pizzafy. Started by YouTube star Eric “Airrack” Decker and made from tomatoes grown in California’s Central Valley, it claims to make whatever you’re eating — tacos, cheese and crackers, French fries — taste like pizza.

There’s also the TikTok sensation Pink Sauce, a sweet and tangy dressing made with dragon fruit that pairs well with fried chicken and salads. After a controversial, much-maligned launch from personal chef Veronica “Chef Pii” Shaw, Pink Sauce is now made and distributed by Dave’s Gourmet.

The biggest sauce maker in the world is also embracing the trend, moving past basic ketchup, mustard, and mayonnaise. Earlier this year, the Kraft Heinz Company began testing a sauce dispenser that can customize more than 200 different sauce flavors for use on hot dogs, hamburgers, or whatever needs a squirt of zestiness.

Similar to the Coke Freestyle machine, a touch screen allows users to choose a base, such as Heinz 57 or BBQ, then enhance it with flavors like jalapeño, buffalo, and mango. In 2018, Heinz began selling its mash-up Mayochup sauce and has followed suit with stand-alone flavors like Buffaranch and Honeyracha.

For small-batch maker Marshall, her experimentation journey began in her home kitchen before moving on to a shared commercial space, then eventually building a commercial kitchen on the bottom floor of her new residence. As her business grew, so did her customers’ palates.

“My first year, I didn’t make any sauces with anything really spicy like ghost peppers and Carolina Reapers,” she says. Marshall wasn’t sure there was a market for such hotness and also because Pacific Northwest farmers really weren’t growing them. “Now that there are so many hot sauce makers,” she adds, “farmers have a demand for all these peppers.”

Today, Marshall’s line includes 27 different sauce flavors and heat levels. She sources all her ingredients from Pacific Northwest purveyors because she wants her sauces to showcase Oregon’s bounty of crops. The farmers market gives her an opportunity to innovate with creations such as a strawberry rhubarb ghost chili sauce crafted during the height of Portland’s strawberry season and a basil-infused sauce culled from her own garden.

“Oregon is very wet, so we have things like leeks, onions, and kale growing continuously,” Marshall explains. Her aromatic Bird’s Eye Basil uses leeks as a base, providing a silky texture that’s more unique than a standard hot sauce. “It’s just something I came up with,” she says, “based on what’s in my garden.”

Besides farmers markets, small-batch sauce makers are utilizing new avenues to make a name for themselves. In 2018, community engagement manager Aubrey Lenyard of Atlanta embarked on a personal challenge to create a spicy peach-infused barbecue sauce that would pair well with pork loin and utilize Georgia’s official state fruit. He created AubSauce.

Once Lenyard perfected the recipe (“It really is just my grandmother’s peach cobbler that I made savory,” he reveals), he launched a Kickstarter campaign to bring the sauce to the public. Within 24 hours, Lenyard reached his $5,000 goal. By the end of the campaign, he more than doubled it. Within six months, AubSauce was on store shelves. “It’s such an amazing thing to have something in your head,” Lenyard says, “and the next thing you know, take it to fruition.”

From the beginning, Lenyard positioned his sauce line, which now includes flavors like fiery pineapple mango and strawberry balsamic, as items that would be found in specialty stores. “With a day job, I felt the farmers market route was going to take up too much of my time,” he says. Lenyard hired a contract packer to cook sauces based on his own recipes as well as package and label orders.

With bright, colorful packaging, the fruit-based sauces are different from typical barbecue condiments found on shelves. The first time he brought AubSauce into the specialty barbecue shop Atlanta Grill Company, the shop’s curator purchased three cases on the spot without even trying it, because of the unique design. “‘I can taste it later,’ he told me,” Lenyard recalls. The sauces received prime position on shelves and were sold out after two weeks.

The boost of sauces from folks like Marshall and Lenyard inspired Brian Ruhlmann to launch Craft Hot Sauce, a site highlighting the stories behind hot sauces and their creators (including Sarah Marshall) from around the globe. “I was naturally curious about people’s backgrounds, and I began to see that pretty much every culture has a culinary sauce,” says Ruhlmann, who eventually launched a hot sauce of his own. “They just look and taste a little different.”

Ruhlmann believes that small-batch craft sauces provide consumers with healthier, more local options than sodium-loaded, sugar-packed varieties from big brands. After nearly a decade of hearing from sauce makers and tasting their creations, he’s amassed several tips for discovering your next top sauce.

First, Ruhlmann suggests reading sauce labels to determine whether they’re worth it. Is there a long list of unnecessary ingredients? Does it have tons of salt and sodium, or sugar? He also recommends asking sauce-obsessed friends, family, and colleagues for recommendations as well as looking out for what’s trending on social media.

It’s important to look for variations in flavor profiles, according to Ruhlmann. “You’ll see a lot of green chili, mango habanero, and classic red hot sauces,” he says. “We have some of these sauces in our lineup as well, but then we have a fermented curry-style sauce made with seasonal lemongrass and fresh turmeric called Brian Boru’s Curry Hot Sauce. Its label has an interesting illustration of a red-bearded Viking who’s a legendary Irish king.” Like Lenyard, Ruhlmann believes eye-catching packaging is absolutely necessary for a sauce to attract attention.

Ultimately, what really makes a sauce stand out for Ruhlmann are the people behind it. He suggests getting to know their stories, whether it’s visiting them at farmers markets or following them on social media. “Artisan sauce makers are people that have a love of doing what they do,” he says, “and the more they succeed, the more their local economies do as well.”

Laura Kiniry is a San Francisco-based writer who has contributed to the BBC, Condé Nast Traveler, Smithsonian Magazine, Atlas Obscura, Serious Eats, Via, and Westways.

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