Pace Picante Medium Sauce Review

I just found a 16-ounce jar of Pace Picante Medium Sauce in the basement from 2007. The color still looks great. I knew I had a few jars of picante down there that I should probably eat before they spoil. So today at the store, I picked up a family sized bag of Doritos Cool Ranch nacho chips. Well, I just finished enjoying some of that Pace picante with the chips, and it was as delicious as I remember. So allow me to share my impressions of this Pace product, that I’ve loved with corn chips over the past several years anyhow.

Benefits, Pros, Advantages, and Features

This salsa has no fat, no added sugar, but contains lots of vegetables. It’ low-calorie as well, at 10 calories per one eighth cup serving.
This is one vegetable-based dipping sauce that keeps me going back for more, and it’s pretty healthy to boot.
This sauce is still at its finest flavor five years after purchase. The “best by” date was December of 2011. Well, I’m a few months late eating it. But it tastes just as good as ever to me.
While I do not remember exactly what I paid for this product, since it was five years ago that I bought it, I’m certain that it was not terribly expensive. It’s certainly not expensive today, as you can get it at major grocery stores for approximately $2 for one 16-ounce jar.
Pace picante comes in a glass jar with a metal lid. I love glass because of how little it biases the flavor of the contents inside., and it can be recycled.
They found a nice ratio of tomato juice to vegetables in this salsa-like picante sauce. There was enough liquid to thoroughly moisten the nacho chips I ate this on, yet enough solid vegetables that I felt like I was eating well.
Though this picante is a bit “liquidy,” I found it thick enough that it did not run off of the chips as I scooped it up, and I was not even using those scoop-shaped corn chips either.
Reading the ingredients list, I find mostly vegetables; food that most Americans should eat much more of. This sauce contains tomatoes, jalapeno peppers, onions, and garlic along with natural flavors, with crushed tomatoes being the most prominent ingredient. What a simple yet pleasing harmony of tastes.
They say this sauce is medium in flavor intensity. But I thought it tasted more like mild salsa; virtually no heat at all. But that’s fine. I just do not know how that’d make their mild sauces any more mild that this one tasted.
This is an all-natural salsa that contains no preservatives.
The back label includes a recipe for Texas Two-Step Chicken. Hmmm. Perhaps I’ll try making that sometime and review it.
This picante salsa goes well with eggs (Mexican omelette), nacho chips (as I had with it tonight), pasta (a pleasant change from Italian-flavored spaghetti sauce), burritos, chicken, and cheese (you can mix this with cream cheese and milk for a delicious dairy dip).

Disadvantages, Cons, Problems, and Concerns

As healthy as this Pace product is in terms of vegetable nutrition, it does contain 250 MG of sodium per 2-tablespoon serving. That seems quite high, as I ate 14 tablespoons with my chips tonight. I hope they make a reduced-salt version of this salsa-like picante sauce. Not much at all negative to say about Pace picante.

Our Rating

Aside from the excessive sodium (in my opinion), I heartily recommend this product as a dipping sauce or salsa for chips of most any kind, or as an ingredient of a your own dipping sauce recipe. I’d rate this picante sauce at 94 out of 100.

Where To Buy Pace Picante Medium Sauce

Look for Pace Medium Picante Sauce in the glass jar with the yellow lid and yellow, red, green, and white label, at most major grocery stores and food super centers. I think you’ll like it.

References

Revision History

2015-02-01: Moved this post to the Tom’s Diet Quest blog, added whitespace, adjusted ad placement, and tweaked the content.
2012-04-06: Originally published.