Barker's Meal Sauce - NZ Tomato with Blackbean product reviews

I am not sure why but had assumed we would just have diced chicken and rice with it, until I read the label and realised it was great for Nachos or with Sausages. So after cooking a different chicken meal last night declared tonight was Nachos night to everyones cheers. Thank goodness that put recommendations on the label and I have to say that Sausage Bake sounds great.

I decided to make a very plain Nachos as wanted the sauce to do it all. So after dicing some onions, I just mixed them with the mince and then threw the sauce on top. First of all I was surprised to see corn and capsicums and some black beans making an appearance and I automatically thought 'where has this sauce been all of my life'. Seriously, I add basically all of these ingredients normally into the mixture when making it. This reduces my grocery list and I don't need to buy Mexican Tomatoes and Chilli Beans seperately. I let the sauce simmer while I grated some cheese and basically I had the dinner done in less than 15 minutes.

While the sauce was simmering I pulled up Countdowns online service and was disappointed to see that this product is not on their shelfs so will have to source it somewhere else. I also looked at what I would normally spend on additions to our Nachos and this ended up being a tad more expensive in the long run. But, when you add in the simplicity of it and having one jar cover all basis its a win win.

Everyone agreed that it was great. It was not as spicy as I thought it would be and did not require the sour cream - but really what is nachos without sour cream. Actually, avocado would go great with this or even some extra cut tomatoes. The flavour was nice and where as my husband thought it was a little to subtle I really enjoyed it and so did both of the girls. My youngest told me I had out done myself with the sauce tonight. It covered the mince perfectly. My husband did say he thought a tad too runny but honestly he way to critical sometimes and it was fine.

If I can find this particular flavour in another supermarket I will definitely be buying it. It is great for when one of the girls is cooking dinner and I won't need to worry about them adding different components. You could add more items into it like grated carrot or garlic to add another element to it. Either way I think its just great. Winner in my eyes.

I liked the sound of this initially and thought it would be great with pasta - then reading a bit closer decided it would work better for nachos. We are flexitarian and trying to reduce our meat/dairy intake but are not strict on the removal of meat which means a sauce like this is ideal. I can use it when we have visitors who don't do dairy but I can also just add it to dishes I already have a tomato base in. The sauce/jar smelt great and it was a good addition to our pantry. The only thing I would note is that hubby almost put it in a noodle dish - assuming black bean was an Asian meal sauce after we tried the teriyaki. I think the whole experience of these new meal sauces being a range of cuisines could trip you up if you don't look closely.

Nachos in our house are a bunch of cans added together, dropped on corn chips and then baked. So because we don't add meat to our nachos this seemed like a really good idea to keep it all vegan (well there was non-vegan cheese on mine but that is a different story!).

Given the black bean aspect we added, chilli beans, kidney beans, corn and chopped tomatoes. This meant it stretched to four people so that was great when usually this dish would only serve three of us. I liked the flavour and like a good few barkers products you could almost taste the freshness. The look was great (well as great as any nachos look). I also cut down the amount of salsa I needed which was an added bonus. Total recommendation and great addition to our house. I will keep this in the back for a quick and tasty meal - a great hit. In fact it was so lovely smelling and I was so excited by it I totally forgot to take a photo!

I misjudged this sauce when I first saw it available to review I saw black bean and immediately thought chinese beef black bean as this is probably the only experience I have had with black beans! When I received the jar and began reading I realised that it was labelled as more of a mexican meal sauce which is fine as we often have mexican styled meals in our house and the whole family enjoy it. One of the serving suggestions was beef nachos so I decided this was a great way to use the sauce as the whole family love nachos and having a ready made sauce meant I could quickly whip something together for the hungry tribe.

My eldest is vegan and while the rest of us eat meat, we often have at least one night a week where we will all eat the vegan option. This sauce was perfect for a vegan nacho, we simply heated the sauce up and added more beans, served over corn chips with some fresh avocado on top. The sauce is nice and mild but has good mexican inspired spice through it so it adds enough flavour to a meal without having to add too much extra, while the non vegans would opt for cheese or sour cream to make it more exciting, the vegan in the household who often gets left out found this had just enough flavour and has since requested we buy more of this sauce.

These jars are a good size so while you could easily make two meals from one jar, we used the whole lot and it left us wiht enough left overs for my eldest make bean burritos for her lunch the next day. It's great o have vegan and gluten free friendly products becoming more readily available and in ready made sauces like these from barkers it really has been a huge time saver for our family while not compromising on flavour this is one sauce we will probably be regularly using in the future.

I tend to avoid sauces which state they'll be good for Mexican based dishes as I always find them to be too bland flavour wise, to hot spice wise or a combination of the two. My youngest was very keen to have tacos for dinner so I figured it was the perfect opportunity to use this in. We diced up some onion, garlic and mushrooms and sauteed them for a little before adding in some diced nutmeat (a tinned vegetarian protein). I poured the sauce in before noticing that the heat rating was medium but figured I could douse it in sour cream if need be, though my youngest did a little taste test and declared it "not too spicy at all".

In the end, we couldn't have tacos, they had obviously not sealed shut well and had gone stale and gross, but luckily I had some wrap bowl molds still, so we made edible bowls. While they cooked, we taste tested the mix in the pan and it was well received, in fact, I enjoyed it so much I must have eaten half a cup of the mixture while I was waiting... We popped the mix into our bowls, added ranchslaw, cheese and sour cream. I had bought salsa but this tasted like it already had some in it, so we didn't add that. The meal was a total hit, no one found it spicy and everyone finished it in good timing. When we did some shopping I asked my kids if we should buy some more and it was a resounding yes, so we've bought another jar and I'm sure it will be a regular in our house now.

Barker's Meal Sauce - NZ Tomato with Blackbean sauce has been my top pick of the flavours I have review so far. My family and I love Mexican and the yummy flavours so we decided to make the nachos with the sauce as suggested on the bottle. We used Venison mince and the sauce and it was so good. My whole family really enjoyed it and I enjoyed the little added corn and capsicum in the sauce. It says it is medium heat on the bottle but I would say it is mild. I did not get any spice kick from it and my kids ate up without saying anything apart from yum.

They are really packed all the flavours into this one jar. Normally when I make nachos I use two tins, one of mild chilly beans for the kids we choose mild and one of tomato pasta sauce or something similar. This jar covers the two tins, and I found there was enough sauce the mince was well coated and not dry, it thickened up as it cooked and left a nice thick saucy mixture for the corn chips and sour cream. I added a little coriander to mine which topped it off for me.

I would pay the $5.99 for this flavour as for me it replaces to tins which would be about the same price anyways. The falvours are great, and I love how it is New Zealand made and gluten free and vegan friendly. Also love that it has no added preservatives and no added colours and flavours. Great choice for the family. Great glass jar, simple but effective label, give two options to choose from on the label and a idea to go to the website for more recipes. There would be so much you could use it for and would make nice burritos or wraps as well. Quick and easy to use and so tasty.

Since there were just two of us for dinner, we thought it would be sensible to just use half and save the rest to have with something else in a day or two. We were impressed by the look of the sauce in the jar - there were whole corn kernels and beans clearly visible in the tomato mix. This was going to be no pureed flavouring; the sauce looked chunky enough to eat on its own. However, we did want to try it out in a couple of different ways, so we satisfied ourselves by trying a little on a teaspoon. So far so good - a nice full flavour.

I had some home-made fresh beef meatballs in the freezer so for the first meal we simmered them in the sauce until the beef was cooked through. The sauce thickened as it cooked, but it maintained its consistency - the corn and beans could still be seen clearly. Baked potatoes and grilled tomatoes completed the meal; the potatoes were perfect with the sauce as they soaked up the flavours. I was going to mash them, but in the end I baked them instead. This was a good choice as the crisp skins went well with the softer meatballs and sauce.

Once it is opened, the sauce will keep for seven days. This is especially useful when you are cooking for just one or two people as it can be used in more than one recipe. Food can get boring if you have the same thing two days running, so I made sure to prepare it differently the second time round. We had some lamb sausages that I thought would be a complete contrast to the meatballs. This time I used a slow cooker to prepare the meal so that the sausages would not dry out. Once they were ready, I served them with green vegetables (leeks, broccoli, and silver beet) and bread rolls.

What we found interesting was that the meals were quite different from each other. The meatball meal ended up quite sweet, probably sweeter than we would have liked, so we added a slosh of sushi vinegar and another of soy sauce. This sorted it out to our satisfaction. The sausage meal, on the other hand, was much less sweet. I think this may have been due to my serving it with silver beet: this vegetable is strongly flavoured and proved to be a good foil for the sauce.

One thing we did both comment on was the way the sauce was made. When we saw the words "black bean" on the label, we had both expected an Asian style sauce which might be quite salty. Instead, the beans in this product are whole and their flavour is much less prominent. In fact, we thought it was closer to a Mexican sauce and that started us thinking. Next time we serve it, we will add a little chilli and try it with nachos and cheese. Although I make my own salsa most of the time, there are always days when I am in a rush; that is a good time to have a ready-made product in the cupboard.

Incidentally, there was a little sauce left in the slow cooker after we had finished our sausage meal, so we spooned it out and had it for supper on cold beef sandwiches. It was just like a chutney, although runnier, so sandwiches made in this way would probably be best eaten immediately to prevent the sauce soaking into the bread. All the same, it was interesting to find that it was just as nice eaten cold.