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Best Cheap Salsa


    Salsa and chips -- the dynamic duo of snack foods. Whether you're watching sports, enjoying family movie night, or stocking up to binge a new season of a favorite show, this simple combo is the hero of the hungry. To find the best cheap salsa to pair with tortilla chips, we organized a panel of eight tasters for a blind test. Our volunteer panelists sampled 11 low-price name-brand and store-brand salsas purchased at Safeway, Walmart, Trader Joe's, and Whole Foods. While budget-priced salsa may lag high-end artisanal products in terms of nuance and ingredients, the best cheap salsa has near-universal appeal.


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    Our Top Pick

    Safeway Signature Select Chunky Classic Medium Salsa Review

    Our Picks

    Safeway Signature Select Chunky Classic Medium Salsa Review


    Of all the budget-conscious salsas in our blind taste test, Safeway's Signature Select Chunky Classic Medium Salsa ($2.99 for 24 ounces) achieved the best balance. It had a smooth consistency with discernable chunks of onion, green pepper, and tomato that were neither too small nor too large. Some lower-rated salsas were overly thick and marinara-like, but this one was liquidy without being watery and clung nicely to chips.


    When it came to flavor, testers said they could taste undertones of onion and garlic. A few pointed out this salsa's sweetness and others said it had a vinegar-like "bitterness," but at the end of the day, most were pleased and gave it high scores. The lowest ratings that the medium salsa received were from tasters looking for more intense heat.


    As with many of the money-saving store brands we evaluate, it's hard to find any expert or user reviews online for this product. It's a house brand available only at Safeway stores, so users reviews on Amazon and big-box store sites are nonexistent. Private labels like these are often skipped in favor of name brands when experts weigh in, further limiting comparative feedback.


    Even though our own taste test results are all we have to go on, we feel confident recommending this salsa as a top pick, especially at a price of 12 cents an ounce. It wasn't quite the cheapest salsa we tested (that honor went to Walmart's Great Value Restaurant-Style Medium Salsa), but it fell at the low end of the cost spectrum. From everyday entertaining to Taco Tuesdays, Safeway's Signature Select Chunky Classic Medium Salsa should hit the mark without a hit to the wallet.

    Tostitos Chunky Medium Salsa Review


    Tostitos Chunky Medium Salsa ($3 for 15.5 ounces) came in slightly behind Safeway's Signature Select Chunky Classic Medium Salsa in our taste test results. Panelists said it had "nice spice" and "good texture." Like our winner, this salsa profited by offering up nice-size bits of vegetables.


    If this product has a weakness, it's the ever-so-slight runniness of the salsa and a subtlety of flavor that some tasters wished was a little less subtle. On the other hand, sensitive palates may like the fact that the Tostitos-brand salsa is on the mild side of medium.


    In a taste test conducted by Thrillist, Tostitos Chunky Salsa tied for third out of 10 brand-name and boutique jarred salsas. Like our panelists, the Thrillist tasters commended the brand for a decent blend of spice and acidity.


    We also found a smattering of online feedback to back up the experiences of our panelists. Customers posting reviews on the Walmart website were similarly struck by the mellowness of the spice, and yet the salsa has earned an average of 4.5 out of 5 stars from 15 user reviews. Amazon customers -- admittedly only four of them -- give it 5 out of 5 stars. One advocates using it in recipes as a substitute for tomatoes.


    Tostitos Chunky Salsa isn't perfect, but it's a sufficiently impressive addition to the end of a chip. It was slightly spendier than our other top pick, at 19 cents per ounce, but still a good value and it's available at almost any supermarket, convenience store, or corner bodega.

    Walmart Great Value Restaurant-Style Medium Salsa Review


    Walmart's Great Value Restaurant-Style Medium Salsa ($2 for a 24-ounce jar) has many pleasing attributes, including the fact that it is indeed a great value. It stands out from the crowd of bottled salsas at only 8 cents an ounce.


    Of course, an appealing price alone wasn't enough to put this salsa on our shortlist. It took a consensus from our tasting panel -- who enjoyed the flavors of this "all-purpose salsa" with "good spice" -- to secure Great Value Restaurant-Style Medium Salsa a spot as one of our good cheap picks. Panelists warmed to its pungent aroma and tang of cumin and cilantro. With an over-fine tomato and veggie dice, the salsa bordered on "mushy" and hovered dangerously close to a "marinara sauce" consistency, but it was saved by virtue of its flavor profile.


    On the Walmart website, reviewers praise Great Value Restaurant-Style Medium Salsa for packing zing and hearty tomato taste. It's rated an average of 4.9 out of 5 stars with a total of 15 reviews. Several consumers seem to prefer the crushed-tomato thickness of the Walmart-brand salsa to a chunkier makeup, claiming it spreads nicely and better coats chips. Consumers who want to take things up a notch can always boost the spice level with hot sauce or cayenne, as at least one reviewer recommends.

    Trader Joe's Chunky Salsa Review


    Trader Joe's proprietary foodstuffs are notoriously hit or miss. When they're on target, enthusiastic consumers can't get enough and stand in line to stock up. When they miss, they sometimes do so spectacularly. Knowing this, we weren't sure what to expect when we dished up Trader Joe's Chunky Salsa ($1.99 for a 16-ounce jar) and passed out the tortilla chips.


    As it turns out, this one was more a hit than a miss. The strength of this salsa, labeled Trader Jose's, is its savory taste. Bright with tomato acidity and spicy but not too hot, it extracts maximum impact from jalapeños, coriander, paprika, and onions, among other ingredients. Panelists particularly noted its "chili powder flavor."


    The texture is where Trader Joe's Chunky Salsa unravels a bit. It has the consistency of a well-blended tomato purée, and although it has substance, it's a little more watered-down than our tasters preferred. The homogenous pulpiness of this salsa gives it what one panelist called a "funky mouth feel." Although our reviewers found room for improvement in the texture, they still ranked this salsa fairly high on the list.


    Online reviews are almost nil, but the brand loyalists behind the niche blog What's Good at Trader Joe's profiled this salsa in a post a few years back. While consistency bumped the salsa from great to good in the minds of our tasters, it had no such effect on this review. The salsa claimed 9.5 out of 10 points for having good flavor with a little "kick."


    Trader Joe's Chunky Salsa is on the cheaper end of the price range, at 12 cents an ounce, solidifying its status as a good cheap salsa.

    Herdez Salsa Casera Medium Review

    Newman's Own Medium Chunky Salsa Review

    Buying Guide

    Cheap Salsa Taste Test

    With the move these days toward artisanal everything, there are salsas incorporating ghost peppers, mangoes and lime, pineapple and chipotle, and even cranberries spiked with habanero. Price tags hit $7 a jar without breaking a sweat, and additions such as black beans and corn -- once deemed "gourmet" -- have become decidedly passé. In a previous taste test, we branched out to salsa verde and various flavored salsas, but cheap salsa is valued for the very quality sacrificed in all this specialization: It's an easy crowd-pleaser. With that in mind, we got back to basics, limiting this year's selections to classic tomato salsa.


    We shopped for a mix of reasonably priced national brands -- Tostitos, Pace, Herdez, Newman's Own, and On the Border -- as well as widely available store brands from Safeway, Walmart, and Trader Joe's. Most rang up at less than 19 cents an ounce, but we included a few organic options with higher prices alongside the conventional salsas -- and none finished among our top picks. The most expensive salsa in the sample was Simply Tostitos Organic Chunky Medium Salsa, which rang up at 31 cents an ounce. The cheapest competitor was Walmart's Great Value Restaurant-Style Medium Salsa, at just 8 cents an ounce. Testers were presented the salsas in unmarked bowls and asked to comment on the flavor, consistency, and appearance of each sample. From there, they named their favorites and determined which cheap salsas weren't up to par -- or were downright unpalatable.


    Unsurprisingly, personal taste played a big part in the results. Panel members didn't agree on which salsas were their favorites. Those who like a bit of heat had fewer good things to say about the milder salsas. Those with more sensitive palates generally disliked the salsas with stronger flavors, calling them "too salty" or "too spicy." In the end, the top picks won out by presenting a good balance of flavor and texture that appealed to chip dippers of all taste persuasions. They were neither too sweet nor too salty, and chunky but not too thick nor (heaven forbid) the consistency of tomato sauce. They delivered a flavor punch without too much spice.


    Safeway's Signature Select Chunky Classic Medium Salsa received the best reviews, due to its "rich" mix of tomato, onion, and garlic flavors and a thick, consistent texture. Tostitos Chunky Salsa came in a close second, with its chunky yet "smooth-tasting" balance.


    Walmart's house-brand Great Value Restaurant-Style Medium Salsa and Trader Joe's Chunky Salsa also earned good ratings, but each had minor deficiencies of texture or flavor proportion that kept them just shy of the top tier.


    Two salsas were conspicuously disappointing. Herdez Salsa Casera Medium was overly diluted, and the tomatoes tasted more acidic than sweet. Newman's Own Medium Chunky Salsa, another dud, was too homogenously blended and its seasoning too mild to generate interest.


    There were some salsas -- including all the organic products -- that, while perfectly serviceable, didn't do much to stand out from the crowd: Pace Chunky Medium Salsa, On the Border Medium Salsa, 365 Everyday Value Organic Thick & Chunky Medium Salsa from Whole Foods, O Organics Medium Chunky Salsa from Safeway, and the expensive Simply Tostitos Organic Chunky Medium Salsa. A majority of tasters didn't consider these salsas terrible. Rather, they are dips to grab only when the store is running low on other options.


    Appearance

    Appearance went hand in hand with consistency in our salsa review, with participants preferring chunks of vegetables over salsas that resembled purées. If a salsa didn't look appetizing to our testers, it was unlikely to earn high ratings.


    The panel favored the easy-to-see mix of tomatoes, onions, and peppers in the two best salsas, Safeway's Signature Select Chunky Classic Medium Salsa and Tostitos Chunky Salsa. Both had a midsize dice that wasn't overly consistent, giving an impression of hand-chopped, rather than processed, ingredients. They were thick enough that a chip would stand up in the salsa, but a thin layer of tomato juice settled on top, keeping them from having a "saucy" look.


    On the flip side, taste arbiters reacted poorly to salsas such as Newman's Own Medium Chunky Salsa, which maintained a uniform, crushed-tomato appearance. They dinged the well-blended salsa for having "a smooth texture" that "looks kind of thin" -- more like weak spaghetti sauce than salsa.


    Two contenders in our past tasting session likewise flopped in large part because of their appearance and, in turn, their texture. While spice-loving snackers appreciated that Trader Joe's Salsa Autentica "had a good punch to it," more than one person opined that it "looks like ketchup." Riverwalk Cantina Salsa suffered from an appearance that was "way too tomato-y." Some even said it resembled baby food.


    Consistency

    Our volunteer panel preferred well-balanced salsas with texture and some thickness. They reacted best to "chunky" salsa offerings, such as Tostitos Chunky Salsa and Safeway's Signature Select Chunky Classic Medium Salsa. The toothsome pieces of vegetable abundant in these salsas give them nice composition and variety from bite to bite.


    While Great Value Restaurant-Style Medium Salsa attained the rank of good cheap salsa, an overly fine dice made it "mushy," bringing down its score. Similarly, Trader Joe's Chunky Salsa was more of a tomato purée, which some said gave it an unpleasant mouth feel.


    A thin, monotonous, or unbalanced texture particularly hurt the lowest-ranking salsas on our list. Herdez Salsa Casera had nice bits of onion and tomato to recommend it, but the base was "watery" and acidic, with a runniness that made it "hard to scoop." Newman's Own Medium Chunky Salsa had the consistency of a "thick tomato paste" and "not enough substance."


    Taste

    Arguably the most important factor, taste generated the most incongruent assessments. A portion of the panel was drawn to salsas with tomato as the predominant flavor. These panelists favored some sweetness, and no jarring flavor notes. They tended to be put off by intense hits of spice and anything they considered overly peppery. Another part of the group was partial to salsas with more bite. These tasters homed in on options with some heat over those with a more balanced flavor. For them, tomato was an important component but shouldn't be the extent of the flavor profile.


    Those who prefer some zing enjoyed Trader Joe's Chunky Salsa, with its "spicy," "chili powder flavor," which made fans exclaim, "Yum." On the Border Medium Salsa charmed spice seekers with "smoky" "taco flavor" and notes of cumin, black pepper, and chipotle, although it didn't gain enough traction overall to earn a recommendation.


    Past tasters who liked spicy flavors identified Kroger's Private Selection Authentic Restaurant-Style Medium Salsa as their favorite. They also liked Whole Foods' 365 Everyday Value Thick & Chunky Salsa for its "good vinegar balance" and "nice spice."


    Panelists with more tender taste buds were drawn to traditional salsas such as the Signature Select and Tostitos salsas that topped our chart during this round of testing. The flavors of Walmart's Great Value Restaurant-Style Medium Salsa were well-received across the board, giving some the "strong tomato" base they craved and others some spice without too much "kick."


    Despite the disparate tastes of our opinionated judges, most agreed about what they disliked. Although a couple people said the "hot," "oniony" Herdez salsa had some appeal, most couldn't get over the astringent flavor of its tomato-water base.


    Natural/Organic Salsa

    The "natural" and organic salsas we tested were often judged too sweet and "bland" by more adventurous eaters who preferred zestier flavor. Almost no one appreciated Newman's Own Medium Chunky Salsa. Besides its gloppy texture, it was handicapped by an uninteresting flavor profile. Whole Foods' 365 Everyday Value Organic Thick & Chunky Medium Salsa, O Organics Medium Chunky Salsa, and Simply Tostitos Organic Chunky Medium Salsa all suffered from "mushy" sweetness, disjointed flavors, and odd aftertastes that "didn't go away." As one taster put it, they "tasted natural." It wasn't meant as a compliment.


    Mild Salsa

    Our previous tasting focused on mild salsa. Walmart's Great Value Mild Chunky Salsa won a first-place berth by virtue of being the one salsa all panelists liked. They noted the taste was "decent" and "not too overpowering." The product won over past panelists with the visual appeal of "nice, large pieces of veggies" (in contrast to the Great Value Restaurant-Style Medium Salsa, with its over-fine texture, from this year's test). Likewise, Market Pantry Chunky Mild Salsa from Target was lauded for a "good mix of chunks" and a "slightly sweet," "very mild" flavor.


    Natural and organic salsas with a "sweeter taste," including Kroger's Simple Truth Organic Mild Salsa and Safeway's O Organics Mild Salsa received nods in the earlier test from panelists with milder palates. The Kroger brand was named best organic mild salsa.


    Salsa Verde and Flavored Salsas

    The flavor of salsa verde -- green by virtue of the included tomatillos -- generated a mixed bag of reviews from our previous panelists and were left out this time. Many testers enjoyed the "sweet but smoky" flavors and "interesting spice" while others were turned off by the "sour fruit taste," which some likened to "pickled cucumber." For consumers interested in this variety of salsa, a good balance of fruit and spice made Simple Truth Organic Tomatillo Medium Salsa the best salsa verde in our inaugural tasting. Trader Joe's Salsa Verde was disliked by nearly all the panelists due to its tartness and "lack of distinctive flavor."


    In general, the flavored salsas in the earlier tasting -- whether sweet, with additions such as mango and peach, or sour, with lime and garlic mixed in -- were poorly received. The only out-of-the-ordinary blend that received consistent compliments of any sort was Whole Foods' 365 Everyday Value Roasted Chipotle Salsa. And the best our panelists could muster was appreciation for the salsa's "smoky" notes and "barbecue flavor."