Buc-ee’s Hot Cheddar Hot Sauce review

Bitter: ⭐⭐⭐✰✰

Salty: ⭐⭐⭐⭐✰

Sour: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Sweet: ✰✰✰✰✰

Umami: ⭐✰✰✰✰

Heat: ⭐✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰

Quick Flavor Notes: Vinegar, artificial, stale cayenne, chemicals

Texture: Medium-thin and smooth

Recommended: No

Ingredients: White Vinegar, Cayenne Pepper Puree (cayenne pepper, salt, acetic acid), Water, Cheese Seasoning (Enriched Corn Mean [Corn Meal, Ferrous Sulfate, Niacin, Thiamin Mononitrate, Riboflavin, and Folic Acid], Vegetable Oil [Corn, Canola, and/or Sunflower Oil], and 2% or less of the following: Maltodextin [made from corn], Salt, Potassium Salt, Sugar, Monosodium Glutamate, Yeast Extract, Citric Acid, Artificial Color [Red 40 Lake, Yellow 6 Lake, Yellow 6, Yellow 5], Cheddar Cheese [Milk, Cheese Cultures, Salt, Enzymes], Onion Powder, Whey, Whey Protein Concentrate, Garlic Powder, Natural Flavors, Buttermilk, Sodium Diacetate, Disodium Inosinate, and Disodium Guanylate), Kosher Salt, Garlic Powder, Cayenne Pepper, and Spices.

Buc-ee’s, the Texas-based chain of mega-sized gas stations is known for their wide assortment of food options, surprisingly high wages, and draconian working conditions. They also have quite a large selection of pre-packaged merchandise including an expanding line of hot sauces. While I haven’t had the opportunity to go to a Buc-ee’s location yet, I saw a post about this Hot Cheddar sauce online and having previously enjoyed the Zesti Freshly Grated Hot Parmesan Garlic Hot Sauce I was intrigued to try out another cheese-infused hot sauce.

Speaking of the Zesti sauce, while it had a straightforward and uncomplicated list of ingredients including the real cheese, the ingredients list on the Buc-ee’s sauce is quite a bit more complicated. Starting with a cayenne base the sauce includes a complex cheese seasoning that for some reason is primarily corn meal and includes a bevy of artificial colors, artificial preservatives, and just a tiny bit of real cheese (and by that I mean a very tiny bit, the actual cheese content is lower by volume than the MSG and artificial colors). Seeing ingredients lists that look like the glossary of a chemistry textbook isn’t usually something that bodes well for a sauce in my experience. There’s very little of any cheese aroma from the sauce, primarily just cayenne and vinegar, and the texture is medium-thin and smooth.

My reaction to the first taste was “yuck, what is this?”. It’s rare that I have a visceral negative reaction to a sauce. I’ve had some that are bland and some that have a flavor element or aftertaste that are unpleasant but it’s not common for one to be actively revolting. Buc-ee’s Hot Cheddar Hot Sauce tastes primarily like a cheap cayenne pepper sauce but with unpleasant chemical elements. The vinegar is particularly harsh in this sauce and I’m one who enjoys vinegary sauces. This sauce has an acrid chemical bite. The label says that there’s only 20mg of sodium per serving (which is also quoted as a full fifth of the bottle) but this somehow comes off as also being extremely salty. I see that there’s a potassium salt listed in the ingredients so perhaps that’s playing a saltiness role that’s not showing on the label. There’s zero cheese flavor up front or even in the middle of the flavor profile in this sauce. Any cheddar flavor at all comes as a lingering unpleasant aftertaste that’s closer to concession-stand artificial cheese sauce than actual cheddar.

Giving the sauce an opportunity that perhaps it’s better with food than straight I tried this on a turkey sub, some wings, and a microwave burrito. While it wasn’t abominable on the wings, they weren’t good either and the chemical taste persisted. It ruined the bites of the burrito and sub that it touched. After that I stopped my experimentation.

Needless to say I cannot recommend Buc-ee’s Hot Cheddar Hot Sauce. It doesn’t taste like cheddar and the quality of the sauce aside from that tastes cheap and artificial. This sauce is bad, and Buc-ee’s should feel bad about selling it.