Our first review of the new line of Guy Fieri Salsas spotlights the mildest version – Salsa Verde Green & Mean. “… fire roasted poblano and green peppers and backin’ it up with zesty lime and a pinch of cumin. This salsa is so ‘money’ it’s green!”
Texture & Appearance:
– True to its name, this salsa has a pleasant mellow green color, not the bright neon that other artificially colored salsa verdes have. I like the texture created by uniformly diced pieces of onions and peppers. The base sauce has a smooth consistency, kind of slick and almost gravy-like, which is my least favorite aspect of the salsa. This is probably from the vegetable stock which contains cornstarch.
Taste: – This has a really bright, very fresh flavor. The green peppers and poblanos play well together, and are fairly predominant. Fortunately, the bitterness normally found in jarred or canned chilis is absent, for the most part. I like the garlic undertones, and the addition of herbs adds to the fresh factor.
Heat Level:
– Green & Mean is not as hot as the name would imply. This salsa has a very gentle, mild heat that has quite a bit of staying power. I usually find that the milder heats are the quickest to dissipate, but I like the fact that this stayed with me for a while, helping maintain the “pleasure” factor.
Label/Graphics:
– The label is of the clear, see-thru variety, with large clear text… and a pic of Guy Fieri, of course.
Overall Rating: – While not extremely hot or spicy, Guy Fieri’s Green & Mean Salsa Verde was very flavorful. (I ate about ¼ of the jar while sampling it on tortilla chips.) It’s so good that I’m planning to use this in my next batch of Sour Cream Chicken Enchiladas! And at just $4.79 a jar, it’s a salsa you should consider adding to your pantry.
Ingredients: water, green bell pepper, onion, poblano pepper, canola oil, white balsamic vinegar, cilantro, parsley, sea salt, garlic, cumin, vegetable stock (vegetable juice concentrates (carrot, onion), celery puree, salt, dextrose, yeast extract, corn starch), lime juice, natural fire roast flavor, black pepper, xanthan gum
Produced at Summer Garden, a Green LEED facility, Guy Fieri Salsas are available in 16 ounce jars for a suggested retail price of $4.79. You should be able to find these salsas at your local supermarket soon!
This is our first review of the new Guy Fieri’s Salsa line-up – Salsa Verde “Green & Mean”
Nice job Marilyn! I’m looking forward to this salsa verde on our chicken enchiladas!
Yum, I especially enjoy Green Salsas, so this will definitely make it on to my shopping list. It’s funny you mentioned cornstarch, because I was just pleasantly surprised by a natural thickener used in his Kansas City bbq sauce. I’ll send over my impression on this sauce and see if we’re in agreement. 🙂
I would give this a try. I fell into a love affair with salsa verde two years ago (shhhh! don’t tell Alexis, what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her). While I like my favorite fire roasted recipe, I don’t always have the time or tomatillos needed to make it.
LOL, I promise we won’t tell her! Though this recipe has no tomatillos, the flavor is very fresh, and you wouldn’t know the tomatillos are absent, due to the inclusion on White Balsamic Vinegar. I have to say, this is a really good salsa..oh, I did say that!
Was disappointed in chipolte salsa. Expected something thicker and spicier than the common glop that poured out of the jar. I love your show and was expecting more than what I would get from any pot luck salsa. Only bought it because I really dig your show. Guess it performed it’s duty.
Hi G, thanks for leaving your feedback. I liked the Salsa Verde, but like you, was not a big fan of the Chipotle. I apologize if I left the impression that ALL of the salsas were great. Please don’t give up on us. I look forward to any additional comments you may have.
Marilyn
P.S. Please contact me via email, [email protected] for a followup. Thanks!
THIS IS AWESOME SALSA BUT FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO DONT WANT TO PAY A FORTUNE THEY SELL IT AT BIG LOTS FOR 2.50 A JAR.
Bargain! Thanks Julie.
That’s still too much. This salsa is digustingly flavorless…
Bought it a month ago. Yes in the fridge all the time. Opened and found s mold science experience on te top. Had to throw it out while humming tapps.
I am sorry to say I was not the biggest the biggest fan of the salsa verde. Im not sure if it was the mixture of the cumin and the lime from concentrate. all the other salsas were verrrrry good.
this comment is about the 7 pepper salsa (burn baby burn). hardly! there was no burn. extremely disappointing. wasn’t even hot.
I purchase the salsa verde green and mean…worst salsa ever!!!We open it while watching the football game…thank goodness i had maded pico de gallo…cuz salsa green and mean went directly to the trash…never again!!!!!!
I feel your pain Gloria. There’s nothing more disappointing than opening a jar of a new salsa to try, only to find that you think it sucks. Glad you had the pico too!
I love to try all kinds of salsa. When I saw Guy’s name on a salsa I had to try it. I watch his show about “Diners, Drive thrus and Dives”, so therefore I felt that he had a knack for taste. Well, I was proven wrong with his Salsa Verde and Chipotle Salsa. These two salsas were a very big Disappointment. They lack the flavor and the heat. It was a truly waste of my money. I hope Guy didn’t come up with these salsas himself. Because if he did then I’m beginning to wonder about the show….is he really eating something good?
Yea, it seems pretty unanimous, Tree. I can’t imagine that Guy had *anything* to do with these salsas other than allow his name and bank account to be attached. 🙂
We bought this Salsa tonight at out local supermarket. I think it is incredibly fresh and flavorful. I was surprised it was not a bit tangier, but I can always add a drop or two if hot sauce if I want. I’m looking forward to making Enchilada Verde this week with this salsa. I love Guys’ Triple D Show…I watch an episode or two every day. His show is awesome !!!
Patty, let me know how the Enchilada Verde came out. We appreciate you chiming in and hope you’re happy with the results. While his sauces may not be “craft” style, we found it worked really well on our green chili chicken enchiladas. But of course, we added some “very hot” Hatch green chiles to the recipe 🙂
I just bought a jar of the salsa @ Big Lots & plan on using it to make chili verde with pork . After reading the comments from others I hope I am not going to be disappointed
Gloria, I think the comments, which are always appreciated, reflect the individual tastes of the folks who have tried it. Let us know how it turned out so we can share your experience (and recipe please!) with our other readers. Thanks so much!
Thanks for the review – I used it on a grilled Mexican pizza and it was delicious. I linked the recipe back to your site for the salsa. Thanks for sharing!!
http://foodistherapy.wordpress.com/2012/06/08/poblano-chicken-grilled-pizza-with-avocado/
Yuk! Since when does any good salsa need Xanthan Gum? Ewwww. So nasty.
Just crap. So disappointed!!!
Nasty salsa verde. So gelatinous and watery after taste. Missed the mark on this one.
It was probably the best (?) of the lineup in my opinion. I think I went a little too far with the Star Ratings. 🙂
I made the mistake of using it for the green tomatilla sauce for chicken lasagna and had to throw the rest of the casserole out after one serving. Not something I would use again. It may be okay for a mild salsa, but it tasted too oniony and the lime made it taste off to me and I really didn’t pick up any heat and I lived in New Mexico and So. Cali and love that kind of food. I think it needs a deeper body of flavor to smooth the oniony edges and have no idea why green bell peppers were used when you have serranos, anaheim, and hatch chilis available.. Overall a 2 out of 5 possible stars. Nice packaging though.
Never heard of the guy Fieri, just saw the Green & Mean jar in Big Lots and thought it looked good. Long ago sampled a green sauce w/eggs at a grocery store tasting and never have found that awesome flavor since… but then I don’t usually buy salsa verde, at all… But this taste is Not at all what I was looking for. Can not find one thing to eat it with that makes it taste good. Tried it w/chips, too salty, tried it w/eggs, too salty and just not good. tried it with Ezekiel bread, and it’s just not good with anything I’ve tried it with. Tried it by itself and it’s just too mushy, too salty and not tart like green tomatoes would have made it at all. Very disappointed and even for the Big Lots price of $2.50 it’s not worth the money.
Can anyone suggest something that it can be combined with that could make it taste better than it tastes on it’s own? Shame to throw it out but it is just not good with anything I’ve tried it with. Yuk!
I don’t think there’s much you could do to it.
Very disappointed in the 7 pepper salsa. Thought it would be way more hot. I also found that it was quite tasteless.
Don’t, just DON’T! I consider myself a connoisseur of salsa. I’ve tried just about every brand on the market. I recently bought two different jars of Guy’s salsa, what a waste of money! Almost $12.00 down the drain!!! This stuff was so nasty, barely edible. The red sauce, I believe it was called 7 Peppers was full of tomato paste! The green Verde sauce taste like something out of a can.
Yup. Seems to be the consensus! Thanks, Kay.
the worst salsa ever what a waist of my money
I tried the salsa verde today. Being a connoisseur of salsa, especially green salsas, I was not just disappointed, I was appalled. This is nasty, very oily, horrible salsa. The flavor is dull and bitter – and oily. Absolutely inedible. I’m not sure how the author of this article wrote it with a straight face. Then again, part of the rating is label/graphics, as if the visuals on the bottle have anything to do with the content.
$5.49 wasted.
Skip, the author would be me. I’ve had worse, for sure. And I understand your disappointment.
Stick to the small craft makers of salsas, and you won’t be disappointed.
Regarding this review, written 2 years ago, I felt compelled to speak about just what I thought about the salsa. As usual. But I’ve almost given up reviewing “store bought” or “big company” salsas (Pace, Renfro’s, etc) mainly because they never live up to the awesome flavor and quality of small craft companies.
As a fan of Guy Fieri, and the persona that he is, I was excited about his salsas, and yet not wowed by the ultimate taste tests of them.
Thank you for reading and sharing your thoughts. I hope you’ll check out some of the other salsa reviews we’ve done: http://hotsaucedaily.com/tag/salsa/
I bought this salsa verde a month ago thinking that I would be in for an exciting adventure when I used it. Finally using it tonight on some Mexican food left me extremely disappointed. There are no redeeming qualities to this salsa. It tasted and smelled somewhat like old turkey chili from a can. It is unusable and I am disappointed I wasted my money on this. Guy Fieri should have checked this stuff out from the bottle before putting his name on it.