Steve T Rochester's Original Meat Sauce

02/16/2025: Update. I should have mentioned previously, but this is the soupiest of all the sauces I've tried so far. Meat and onions are definitely visible. Anyway, I've got another jar of this. I am not sure if they changed the recipe a bit or what (I doubt it since they've been around since 1963), but there's an updated list of ingredients on the jar.. maybe due to regulations on what must be labeled? I guess this gives away part of the mystery of what's in it. See below.

Ingredients: ground beef, water, onions, lard (BHT & BHA for flavor), sodium acid sulfate, spices & other natural flavors, chili powder, curry powder, xanthan gum.

Originally reviewed on 04/20/2016: Out of all the meat sauces I've tried, this one is definitely the weirdest. At first it seems kind of dull and flavorless. You can really taste the meat, but it's not salty, it's bitter, and doesn't have a lot of the flavor profile I normally associate with a meat sauce. It does have a strong flavor of something like cloves or allspice, but a lot more of that than I normally taste in a meat sauce. As you keep eating it gets spicier.

Mustard complements the sauce nicely, but the funky flavor still comes through. The flavor definitely grew on me.

Ingredients: Ground beef, water, onions, lard, sodium acid sulfate, spices, xanthan gum.

Old-Fashioned Meat Sauce

 

Meaty. Not a lot of tomato flavor in this one. Just enough. Lots of spice in this one making it a little gritty. This has a bitter aftertaste, which I can only guess it because of the cloves. Less cloves, and maybe a touch of vinegar (or cayenne pepper hot sauce which a lot of these seem to use) would make this better.

Ingredients: beef, tomatoes (tomato concentrate (water, tomato paste), salt, citric acid), water, chili powder (chili peppers, paprika, garlic, oregano, cumin, salt, less than 2% silicon dioxide added to prevent caking), sodium acid sulfate, cayenne pepper, salt, black pepper, paprika, sugar, cinnamon, cloves, thyme.

Slow. Rochester Meat Sauce

Coach Tony used to produce his own meat sauce and eventually started Permac Enterprises, which produced the sauce and products for other small businesses. In 2020 the company was purchased and renamed Craft Cannery. They moved to a new 5,000 square foot facility. In additional to manufacturing their own line of marinara sauces, they still continue to manufacture meat based sauces for other companies. I believe this is Craft Cannery's own version of a meat hot sauce.

Interesting that the label has a linen texture. Maybe they're trying to give it a more elevated classy feel. The sauce itself is a thinner, oily consistency. It's flavor profile is beef and lots of tomato, on the sweet side and barely any heat despite the label saying spicy on it. A slight sweet tang to it. I like it, but I'd like it even better with more cayenne.

Ingredients: ground beef, water, onion, cayenne pepper sauce (aged cayenne peppers, vinegar, salt, natural flavor, garlic), tomato paste, sugar, soybean oil, salt, sodium acid sulfate, chili powder (chili peppers, spices, salt, less than 2% silicon dioxide to prevent caking), paprika, black pepper, cinnamon, allspice, cloves, xanthan gum, cayenne pepper.

PS - Shout out to Flower City Flavor where I purchased the sauce. It arrived super quick and well packaged.

Dawson's Hot Dog Hot Sauce

Ingredients: onion, vinegar, garlic, canola oil, dates, habanero  mash (habanero, vinegar), sugar (cane sugar), sea salt.