Watties Bit on the Side - Smoked Paprika & Tomato Sauce product reviews

As I have sampled a few flavours of the Watties Bit on the Side range, I was really keen to try this new Smoked Paprika Tomato flavour as it sounded very intriguing.

What I love about the bit on the side range is the twist tops on the bottles, they are very easy to open and just pop open upon twisting, great for a such a weak home cook such as myself! Once the top was off, I was keen to inhale the smell of the sauce and I am pleased to say that I was not disappointed, the enticing smoky scent mixed with strong tomato was a real pleasure to the nose. I couldn't resist dipping my finger in the bottle to taste the sauce and it certainly lived up to the smell, it was very smooth but had a great rustic taste.

I decided that I would use the sauce in my Chicken Chasseur recipe, replacing the tomato paste with the Bit on the Side sauce. I cooked the dish in my lidded cast iron dish, only stirring the dish once when my husband walked in the door from work. His first comment was "was smells so yummy?", so after I explained that it was my new sauce, he was eager to have his tea.

I served the Chicken Chasseur with plain rice and mixed veges, the sauce really added a great smoky taste to our meal and I am pleased so say that all four plates were empty so it must of been nice! I would definitely buy this sauce again the future and I am keen to try it out on other dishes.

I love the Wattiw bit on the side range of sauces and have tried a few my favorite would have to be the Java Satay which I always keep in my fridge but this is now a strong contender in fave sauces. I really enjoyed this sauce with its smokey paprika flavour and quite enjoyed it just as a sauce with barbequed steak.

The real special thing about this sauce is that it makes a great base for spicing up your everyday cooking. I found it to be a bit more like a tomato paste than a sauce so it was great to use in the place of tomato paste in my everyday dishes. I made a chicken curry using this as the base and it gave it a nice smokey paprika hint which complemented the curry nicely. We also used it in casserole and as a base sauce for pizza.

Although my kids weren't fans of this on its own everyone enjoyed it mixed into their favorite dishes. It makes a great accompaniment to meat dishes but it was also nice with the cheese on pizzas. I would definitely use it for my curries in future as I think its perfect for this.

As looks can be deceiving, so can names. I was very pleasantly surprised when I opened this bottle. Not only is this not the flavour of a normal tomato sauce, it is also not the normal consistency! The depth of flavour and consistency is like that of a tomato paste. This means it is able to be used in so many more ways than a normal tomato sauce.
So far I have used it in meatballs and the pasta sauce and this deepened the usual flavours. The pizza bread had an amazing zing to it from the paprika. Baked stuffed chicken thighs with tomato and cheese was made cheaper with this sauce considering the price of tomatoes at the moment. With extra added for a sauce the flavour was consistent throughout the dish.
I wanted to try this because this product has no added flavours or preservatives and it didn't let me down with it's natural tomato and the flavour backing this up. Would certainly purchase this product again and would recommend it to others to try. I will also be looking for any others products in this range to try. After trying a number of the earlier products I feel safe in saying they are all of a good quality and worth the money.

I love the Bit on a Side range. I have always had a bottle or two of different flavours in my fridge so I can jazz up a meal here and there. The presentation of the bottles is a bit more elegant than the standard Watties range. You get a glass sauce bottle, with a sleek black lid. The label is a nice black background with almost a manly font spelling out Smoked Paprika and Tomato.

The sauce itself, smells of smoked paprika and then a rich tomato scent as well. The consistency is much richer too. This tastes and has a texture of quality about it. There is more real bits in it, than the smooth standard sauces they offer.

Because the sauce is richer and has a different texture, this one didn't suit my kids. This was fine though, as it was more for me. I liked the flavour. I served this as an ingredient in my grilled cheese sandwiches. I also added it to my macaroni cheese for a bit of extra flavour. My husband didn't like it as the flavour is more like cooked tomato than our other sauces as well. So I really can have the whole bottle!

When I first requested to review this product I thought it was just a condiment like tomato sauce to be added after a meal was cooked. Little did I know that this jar came with a suggestion on the back to use it for cooking. I opened it up and had a little taste to see how strong the flavour was before I decided what to use it with.

My kids favourite meal is pasta with sauce so after tasting it I decided that the best thing to make would be a mince pasta meal. I chopped up some onions and added them to the fry pan while I put some water on to boil for the pasta. I then added the mince and browned it and added the Smoked Paprika & Tomato sauce. I have to admit, I initially struggled to get the sauce out but after shaking it a bit and then adding a small amount of water and shaking some more, the rest was easy to get out. I let the mince and sauce simmer while the pasta finished cooking and then I served up 4 bowls for myself, my husband and my kids.

Both kids devoured their bowls and promptly asked for some more before my husband and I had finished ours, sadly there was only what was our bowls left so I had to take from mine to fill the kids back up. The sauce had a good flavour, mixed with the mince and pasta it wasn't over powering and made for a nice meal.

I don't know if this would make a great dipping sauce as the flavour is very strong and I'm not sure what I would want to dip in it - although dipping some type of meat it in could be quite nice. Next time I head to the supermarket I'll be buying some of this to try it out with different recipes.

I have tried a number of the Watties bit on the side sauces and a lot of them are staples in the pantry. The smoked paprika and tomato is one I have been meaning to try but haven't so when it came up for review it was a perfect chance to give it a try.

When it arrived I had to give it a small taste so I could decide what I wanted to create with it. I dipped my finger in and instantly decided it would be used for cooking and not just as a dipping sauce as it had a very strong flavour. The paprika is a very dominate flavour and almost a little too over powering for me but I decided that cooking with it would probably dull it down just enough for my taste.

I decided to use it to make a quick and easy Chicken parmigiana, I simply grabbed some chicken coated chicken breast, threw some of the sauce on top and then finished it off with cheese. The results were amazing combined with everything else the sauce was a lot more to my taste and was toned down just enough. A few nights later I wanted a quick and easy side dish to go with tea so I cooked up some veges and pasta and tossed a little of the sauce in it and heated slightly, once again it was quick easy and very tasty.
While its not my favourite from the bit on the side range I will buy it again for use in cooking especially for quick and easy chicken parmigiana. If you love the taste of paprika and enjoy really strong flavours then this sauces it perfect for you.

I was really excited to receive a bottle of watties bit on the side smoked paprika and tomato sauce. I love sauces that have a smokey element to them and of course being a kiwi I love tomato sauce. I made a batch of hot chips for lunch, having decided I would like to try the sauce as a dipping sauce. I figured if it was nice I would incorporate it into a marinade for some lamb shanks.

Unfortunately I did not really love this sauce. Having recently tried some other watties sauces, I'm wondering if maybe after 20 odd years of old faithful tomato sauce, anything else seems like an imposter and this perhaps impacts on how I feel about this sauce.

I also admit to really struggling to get the sauce out of the bottle. I even resorted to banging it on the bench with little success. When I did manage to get the sauce out, it was with such force that I admit I made a mess with sauce going all over the bowl and the bench. The kids found it quite humorous, but I did not, as not only did it make a mess I had to clean up - it was a waste of sauce

Marinating the lamb shanks did not eventuate due to the fact the sauce wasn't a huge success and as such I did not wish to waste more food.

I managed to request this item for review - as soon as I saw it I thought "Chicken Pasta." And that's what I used it for, naturally. I'm very fond of the Satay flavoured Watties Bit on the Side sauce and was excited to give this a go. The packaging is good - a glass bottle with a screw off lid and thin plastic tamper proof overlay that is easy to remove. The design of the label is eye catching and the amount of sauce in the bottle is reasonable for the price.

My first attempt at cooking with this sauce I misjudged how strong the sauce was! The strength of the sauce would easily stretch this to do three meals for two people depending on your taste - you may be even able to get four. The sauce delivers a powerful smoked paprika flavour that dances on your taste buds and doesn't leave you disappointed. As a lover of smoked paprika and Watties Bit on the Side sauce, I recommend this product if you love strong flavours. Those who prefer more mild flavouring could simply use less sauce or try balancing the flavour with some sour cream. We will buy this product again in future most definitely. A new instant favourite for this household!

I saw the Watties facebook page advertising this sauce and when it came up for review I thought 'why not', it's my best chance to try it without it affecting my budget. When it arrived I found it to look like a nice and simple design, nothing over the top and it suits the sauce well. I like that it gives suggestions on how to use this on the back label, for dipping, cooking or basting. I decided that my first use for this would be as a simple dip for our hot chips that night. The kids all had a taste and promptly asked for their old and familiar sauce, my wife and I tried some but neither of us found it to our liking.

I decided to give it another go, this time I coated some bits of chicken with this sauce, let it stew for a little while before cooking the chicken up, once cooked I added it to some pasta sauce and tinned chopped tomatoes with a bit more sauce added to it to try and enhance the flavor... The kids again turned up their noses so ate more pasta than anything else. For us adults it was a nice flavor overall but it wasn't anything fantastic so I wouldn't be too interested in buying this in the future.

Paprika... a derivative of chilli, and about the only by-product of that family of plants that I am not a huge fan of. It always makes me think of thick, smokey BBQ sauce - which doesn't agree with me for some reason. Still... there's always hope that something new will change that. Alas, this was not that thing for me. While it didn't leave me feeling nauseous - as most BBQ sauce variants do - it did still affect me in ways that I won't discuss in this review. Suffice it to say, despite tasting pretty darned good in the end, it's not one I will be buying for purely personal reasons.

Looking at this objectively, it's a thicker-than-normal sauce that clearly carries the familiar smell of Watties Tomato Sauce, but also that very distinctive sharpness of chilli - a combination I found very pleasant, especially as it got hot and started to dump the volatiles at an increased rate. Using this in a beef marinade that was then reduced down into a thick sauce for the stir-fry was a last-minute idea that paid off well I think.

Providing a rich colour and a depth of flavour that was unusual enough to intrigue my taste buds, while at the same time being familiar enough to be instantly appealing, made in an excellent option to replace the more usual honey-soy marinade I make for Asian-style stir-fry dishes. Adding a little freshly grated ginger root, garlic and a hint of pineapple to help tenderise the meat made for a new recipe I intend to explore more... but I will have to find something to replace the paprika thanks to my gut's intolerance of it.

Overall, this was a bit of a dark horse - in all aspects that ignore my purely personal issues with it, it is a sauce that has come out of nowhere and should easily be able to make itself known. As the weather starts to warm up in a few months, I dare say this will be seen on an increasing number of BBQ tables - if not, I will be wondering why. I had to give the rest of the bottle to a friend, who immediately tried it on some bread and fell in love with it. I am glad to know that the only issue with my assessment of it was entirely personal, and should not prevent any one else from giving this a try. I couldn't find any fault that pointed to the product itself.