The One Horseradish Sauce Brand You Should Avoid Buying At All Costs

When it comes to delicious sauces and condiments, horseradish may never quite make it to the top of the list of favorites (especially when competing with heavyweights like salsa or ranch sauce). However, for those who enjoy their tuna salad with a hint of spice or want to give horseradish chicken salad a chance to wow them, the sauce is worth keeping close by. Horseradish sauce is mostly used to bring in pungency and heat to dishes alongside being used as a cocktail sauce. For the DIY-savvy, the condiment can be made at home using the root of the horseradish, but sometimes nothing compares to the convenience of a pre-made sauce. When Chowhound took to the grocery stores to pick out, test, and rank the best and worst 10 horseradish brands, there was one brand that wouldn't be added to the pantry ever again: Reese Prepared Horseradish scored last place in the rankings.

While Reese Specialty Foods is a trusted and well-respected brand that brings flavors from all over the world to American kitchens, the brand's horseradish sauce isn't anything to boast about. The main issue with Reese's horseradish sauce is that the aftertaste is unbearable. The overpowering pungency was present when tasted alone as well as when paired with meat. While horseradish is known to have a pretty bold flavor, this sauce's particular imbalance takes things to the extreme and steals the show in all the wrong ways.

Considering the rankings were based on a combination of taste and the ability to build upon flavors when paired with steak, Reese Prepared Horseradish wasn't up to scratch in both departments. In comparison to other horseradish sauces that scored highly in the rankings, a huge let down for Reese's rendition was that the flavors didn't blend well to complement or enhance the rich umami flavor of the steak. While the listed ingredients in Reese sauce don't differ much from the top ranking sauce by Private Selection (both listed grated horseradish roots, water, white distilled vinegar, soybean oil, preservatives, high fructose corn syrup, sugar, eggs, as well as spices and lemon juice), the addition of paprika in Private Selection's horseradish sauce helped to enhance the flavor and overall seasoning. Reese's horseradish sauce lists lemon juice lower in the ingredients list (indicating its lesser quantity in the sauce) when compared to the top-ranking horseradish sauces, which may also be the culprit for Reese's unbalanced flavor palate.

Online reviews also comment on how sour-tasting Reese's horseradish sauce is. The sour aftertaste seems to provide a chemical-like twinge that left many reviewers disappointed. Some even commented that the jar was not worth finishing, confessing that they ended up throwing the whole thing away. Yikes. If you're looking for a horseradish sauce to give your deviled eggs a pop of flavor, it may be best to leave this one on the shelves.