Our Least Favorite Trader Joe's Sauce Totally Confused Our Taste Buds

Trader Joe's offers a uniquely curated selection of seasoning blends and sauces. It has become the go-to spot for creative home chefs who want to try a new recipe or find amazing alternatives to other bland grocery store offerings — and they have come to expect excellence from the brand's ingredient selection. This makes any misses particularly bittersweet, and when Tasting Table's taste tester tried 10 Trader Joe's sauces and ranked them worst to best, they found its Spicy Dynamite sauce to be the most so.

Made from vegan mayo, pickled chili peppers, garlic, sesame oil, and horseradish mustard paste, Trader Joe's Spicy Dynamite sauce is meant to elevate boring dishes. The grocer recommends pairing it from anything from burgers and fries to roasted broccoli and scrambled eggs. However, our taste-tester wasn't impressed. They found that the sauce totally confused their taste buds, and while they acknowledged that the sauce was similar to sriracha mayo, it wasn't as good, making it an unworthy substitute.

While there are many ways to elevate the flavor of mayonnaise, the addition of sesame oil overwhelmed the Spicy Dynamite sauce's other ingredients. Ultimately, it turned the sauce into something that would pair best with Asian-inspired dishes rather than the variety of dishes suggested by Trader Joe's. Finally, beyond being confusing in taste, it was also confusing in texture. Our taste-tester found it strangely gelatinous, making it hard to integrate with the dishes it was meant to improve. Overall, they just weren't sure what to pair it with.

Tasting Table's taste tester isn't alone in their assessment that Trader Joe's Dynamite Sauce is an overrated Trader Joe's item you should avoid. Trader Joe's customers have also found that it has a confusing flavor profile and strange texture that make it hard to decide what dishes its meant to elevate. In a post to r/traderjoes, a shopper resulted to asking for advice on how to use it. The responses were mixed, with some saying that they liked it and others admitting that they found it disappointing. One person said that the "Ingredients were all over the place," while another chimed in, saying that they were "not a fan of this sauce at all" despite being "a big fan of spicy mayo." 

Another shopper agreed with our taste-tester about the sauce's texture, saying, "It tastes good, but the texture is not nice. It's a bit slimy if that makes sense." Another person supported that statement by saying "Definitely slimy." Some shoppers suggested that the vegan mayo base was to blame, saying, "Probably why the texture is so off putting. It's like oily goo." Another went as far as to compare the texture to glue. Even some Trader Joe's crew members don't love the sauce. One employee, who sampled the sauce along with their co-workers, said "of the crew I talked to, only one thought it was 'okay' but wouldn't buy again ... Everyone else gave it two thumbs down."