Home > Categories > Food > Sauces and Condiments > Rufus Teague - Touch o' Heat sauce review
Rufus spiced it up a bit with this one. He always said, "A touch of heat will let you know it's there". Trust me, you'll know the heat is there hangin' out with all that delicious sweetness. This one's special.
• All Natural
• Gluten Free
• Kosher
Product reviews...
Having already tried Rufus Teague Honey Sweet sauce and thoroughly enjoyed it, I decided it was time to try another flavour in the range. The Touch O' Heat variety appealed because I enjoy sweet chili sauce and I thought this might be similar. However, it is quite unique - the heat is there but it is really subtle and does not overpower the food.
I tried this sauce with cold roast meat. It went particularly well with sliced lamb, which can sometimes be too rich. I found that the slight heat cut through the richness and made the food a lot more palatable. I also served it with pan fried fish and sauted potatoes, a combination which worked perfectly as it brought out the flavour of the seafood while spicing up the potatoes at the same time.
Next, I experimented with a bolognaise sauce. I sometimes put a little fresh chili into this dish, but Touch O' Heat sauce made a convenient substitute, enhancing the flavour of the mince without overwhelming it. The leftover sauce was frozen and emerged a week later to be served in another dish without any of the flavour being compromised.
I would buy this product again because it is versatile and very tasty, and can be used in so many different dishes. Because it is not too spicy, it is suitable for all ages, unlike hotter products such as sweet chili sauce which can be too challenging for young palates. The ingredients are largely natural â" the base is tomato puree - so this too makes it acceptable for children as well as for adults.
I was a little apprehensive when I first received this for review because I wasn't too sure about how hot a 'Touch O' Heat' was actually going to be. I knew I would be ok with it however hot as I really enjoy full on flavours and heat, but I wanted to be able to use it on family dishes.
As soon as it arrived I dipped my finger into the bottle (gross right!!) and waited for the kick. It was there, for sure - but not as wild as I had imagined. I had taken out pizza bases and wanted to use this instead of the normal BBQ sauce we always use. I was concerned about it being a glass bottle and not having any way to squeeze or pour out the sauce apart from turning it upside down and shaking it (its quite thick) - but it worked fine - I didn't end up with sauce overload and it was easy enough to control. The sauce spread well and then it was a wait and see game when the pizza cooked.
My 5 year old noticed that I had used a different sauce and said it was a bit too spicy for his liking, but my fussy 3 year old gobbled up his (which is rare, as he doesn't really eat pizza normally - although he picked all the veges off so was mainly sauce and base). My partner enjoyed the added hit and I thought it was spicier than my initial finger taste and really loved the extra body it gave to the pizza.
I love the packaging on this, it's very original and the font that they have used makes it scream with authenticity. The photo gives it a local feel yet it is made in Kansas which is a bit of a let-down for me as I really try to buy local products. Its fantastic to see that it is gluten free and natural. However I would buy this again if we were having people over for a meal and making pizza, or to use as a dipping sauce with mini spring rolls or the likes.
It's very versatile and defiantly delicious! Its a little more expensive that normal sauces I buy, but it is a little bit special so I guess that needs to be taken into account!
I personally love a good BBQ sauce and was very excited to be given the opportunity to try the touch o'heat....I wasn't sure what to make with it first! I have a young family who don't like a lot of heat so I decided to try it on it's own first and see if they would enjoy it or not. In saying that I first tried it as just a BBQ sauce on a sausage with bread. I was a little disappointed that there wasn't a little bit more of a kick but the taste was still delicious so I decided to include it in a couple of main meals for the family.
I first made a bacon and chicken pie with it, cutting up the meat then putting it in a pastry shell before pouring over the sauce which I had mixed with some cream. This was a huge hit with the family - the cream added a richness to the sauce without dulling down the taste too much and the family didn't find it too hot at all!
I next decided to do some pork ribs in a sticky BBQ sauce so I made a mixture of the sauce with just a touch of brown sugar (to help make it sticky) and poured it over the ribs to marinate for several hours. Again these were a huge hit with the family and I will be making more recipes with this sauce in the future! Next on my list to try is some nice BBQ chicken wings! This sauce really is very versatile and has so many uses.....let your imagination run wild!
I can't give this sauce any less than a big 10/10 as it is AMAZING. I know that as even my partner who never gives more than "yeah it is okay", or "not too bad" when I ask him what he thinks turned around and said "I love this sauce, it is so goood!" I have to agree it is beautiful and I keep wanting to add it to dinner everynight but I don't want the bottle to run out so I keep using it a bit sparingly at the same time, definitely a sauce that will be bought again in this house!
I am not usually a spicy person but this sauce has just the right level of heat to it, there is enough heat to know that it is there but not enough to have you running for the nearest tap. All in all it is a pretty sweet tasting barbeque sauce with a ton of flavour and just a slight back note of heat. I think Rufus nailed it on this one!
The first thing we tried it on was on a bacon and salami pizza, so we drizzled it on like a swirl on a meatlovers pizza. My partner got a little bit on his finger and licked it off at which point he decided it was so good he needed to add a dash more to the pizza. The end result was a great meaty pizza with a great barbeque sauce the extra kick from the touch of heat made it pretty special otherwise it would of been a pretty normal dinner. Olly decided it was definitely a meal that called for beer as it was such a good 'man' sauce.
The second time we used it was with some steak and salad which is what I think we would use it for most often as it really does go well as a dipping sauce for red meat. We also marinated some chicken nibbles in the sauce for a few hours before cooking and yip serving with even more sauce to dip the nibbles in. The sauce really soaked into the chicken and left the skin with a yummy caramelised sweet coating. Will definitely be making that again was a sure winner in our house.
What a cool bottle "Touch o' Heat" Rufus Teague comes in! I think that will be a keeper after the sauce is finished. The colour of the labels, the font etc gives the feeling that this will be a fantastic sauce. I like the way that the text is written on the label, it portrays a bit of fun and humour. I almost want to read the text with an American accent! It is amazing what the right marketing does. I like the sauce before I have even tried it (although the word "heat" was the only thing holding me back a little!). One things to note is that it does need to be refrigerated after opening. We nearly missing that part of the label as the way it was presented on the back of the bottle, it was pretty much jumbled up in with the list of ingredients.
The word "heat" in the name of this sauce, even if it is a "touch" of heat indicates that is might be too hot for me. I knew that my husband would love it anyway, so I thought it was worth a try. I thought I would be likely to have a little taste and he would have most of it though! I dipped my finger into a tiny spot of the sauce and found that it was very palatable. I was waiting for it to hit me a moment or two later but it didn't. I tried a bit more and sure enough, it had a tiny bit of spice to it, but the name of the sauce really does capture exactly what it is a "touch o' heat". Very quickly I had decided that I wasn't going to be going out of my way to share this sauce. I loved it and I could think of many ways it would be used in our house. We were having homemade lasagne for dinner and this complimented it perfectly.
I found a winning combination when I went to make a pizza with the sauce. I put a couple of spoons of "Touch o' Heat" onto a Multigrain Farrah Wrap and spread it round. I then topped it with ol' Smokey Bacon from Hellers and Rolling Meadow Mozzarella. What a delicious combination. My mouth is watering again as I type this review. Perhaps I could make it again for lunch today!!
My next trial involved a nice thick piece of rump steak (we get The Mad Butcher to cut steak to our requirements as steak is never very thick in the packs on the shelf). My husband grilled it on the BBQ so that it had the nice grill marks and grilled flavour. When it was cooked to a medium rare perfection, I topped it with a couple of pieces of Mainland Special Reserve Blue Brie and then added a generous drizzle of Touch o' Heat to the top. Well, I was in food paradise! The combination reminded my palate of a meal I have had at a very nice restaurant. We will definitely be using these items together again. I wouldn't usually consider ruining a good piece of steak with sauce but Touch o' Heat enhanced the flavour rather than ruining it. I think that now I have experienced Touch o' Heat, I don't think I could go back to a cheaper alternative and it is something that will grace my pantry from now on.
These days my teeth arent what they used to be. False teeth are a pain to wear so I make do with the few I have left unless I have something really special to eat, like steak or a good hangi feed. My usual cook-it-myself food tends to be soft and mushy most of the time, and this was no exception. I was given some pretty good kai to try out this time around and as soon as I saw what I got, I had a good idea what dinner was going to be.
This time I was smart, and had the parcel delivered to my neighbour, so the whanau didn't come to "just visit their old Koro" the way they always seem to when they see the courier drop off a parcel. Being good friends with the neighbours is pretty important for an old fella like me, so getting their help in foiling the leeching plans of the mokopuna is a great help. After getting the parcel, he gave me a text, and passed the box to me over the fence out back. No-one saw anything. Hah ha! Victory is mine!
So, I got some of this BBQ sauce, and some salami and cheese. The obvious choice is some kind of sandwich, cracker or pizza. None of which I can eat without the false choppers in my face, and my gums are too sore these days to risk that, so I grabbed some other ingredients and made up a gumbo. A can of baked beans went into the pot, along with about a third of the cheese grated up, 3 slices of each of the salamis chopped into small pieces, some chopped ham, a little onion fried until it was soft, and a good helping of this sauce. Bring it up to heat, let it cool slightly and dish it up. Simple and easy, eh. Took me longer to chop up the ingredients than it took to cook it.
Pretty good kai, if I do say so myself, bro. Easy to eat, full of flavour, a little bit of spice to keep it interesting. If I hadn't made it myself, I wouldn't have known they were the cheapest and nastiest can of beans you can buy! This sauce made it something pretty special, I tell you. I put in a little to start with, tasted it, then dumped in a pile more and that was the secret. It's not too bad a price, and you don't need much if you only want to give the food a highlight. I don't normally shop at Countdown because I have to be very careful of my pennies, but for this, I think I may have to make a detour! I might have to try the quieter version, because many of my friends are even older than me, and most of them have a delicate puku.
We don't often have a BBQ sauce in our home so when I was offered a chance to review Rufus Teague's Touch o' Heat sauce I used it as an opportunity to extend our menu. I knew that my husband and I could handle a bit of heat but didn't know how the girls (4 and 5.5) would cope.
The first couple of times I tried it was just with a sausage on bread and although it added a lovely flavour to the otherwise plain lunch I wondered where the heat was. There was none. I found that the sauce was a great consistency to pour from the bottle with good control as I didn't have too little or too much in my sausage.
The bottle Rufus Teague uses is very classy. It is shaped like a hip flask and the seal over the lid is the same shade as the black lid. This presentation makes the bottle the ideal addition to a hamper or accompanying some BBQ tools as a gift for those had to buy for blokes in our lives. The price also means buying all three varieties of Rufus Teague sauces would be within most budgets for gift buying.
I used about half the bottle of sauce to make a BBQ chicken stir fry. I marinated the stir fry chicken in some oil and the sauce overnight. The next day I had a very quick dinner to cook. I simply cooked the meat and all the extra marinade in a frypan, added some frozen vegetables and served on some two minute noodles. This took me less than ten minutes. My girls were not used to this type of meal so they refused to eat the meat and vegetables but they enjoyed the noodles which were covered in the sauce. My husband and I both really enjoyed our meal and he has asked me to cook it again.
I did discover where the heat was. It obviously comes out more when the sauce is heated as the meal had a slight kick to it. This is a delicious sauce and I am tempted to buy the stronger variety to see if we can handle it. It would be worth a special trip to our local Countdown for it.
Random listing from 'Food'...
A delicious combination of Australian macadamia nuts and tangy apricot.
• Gluten Free
• Low Sodium
• High in Fibre
• No Artificial Colours or Flavours
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