Huilerie Beaujolaise Calamansi Vinegar
We absolutely love this small-batch vinegar from French artisanal producer Huilerie Beaujolaise. With a bright and tangy vibrancy akin to tangerine, this vinegar almost tastes like a shrub, or drinking vinegar. Ubiquitous to Filipino cuisine, calamansi is a citrus hybrid between kumquat and mandarin orange.
Mount Mansfield Maple Products Maple Syrup
This incredibly rich syrup has notes of butterscotch, honey and toasted sugar, with a heady base of vanilla and dried fruit. A member of our kitchen team likened its richness to a melted Werther's candy. It’s medium-bodied, which means it can easily be drizzled, but never too watery like store-bought versions. Compared to others, this one has a strong “true maple” flavor to it—nothing like more run-of-the-mill syrups that often have an off pine taste.
Il Colle Del Gusto Sicilian Pistachio Spread
Made from Sicilian pistachios and extra-virgin olive oil, Pistacchiosa is a creamy, aromatic spread you will want to put on all your desserts and, yes, eat straight out of the jar.
Pic's Smooth Peanut Butter
Pic’s Peanut Butter works equally well for classic peanut butter and jelly sandwiches as it does for baking and cooking. Choose between salted or unsalted—even the salted version has only half the salt of comparable brands. And while not impervious to separating, we find the peanut butter comes together quickly with just a stir or two, as opposed to the vigorous blending required with other versions. It also boasts a shelf stability up to 10 times greater than regular peanut butter. And the peanut butter itself is always made without any added sugar, oil or emulsifiers, so the peanut flavor comes through clearly in both sweet and savory recipes.
Little Apple Treats Original Apple Cider Vinegar
Produced from hand-picked apples, not the low-grade and windfall apples most companies use, and aged in oak barrels for two years before bottling, Little Apple Treats cider is bright and sharp, with a bold apple flavor and subtle caramel tones contributed by the barrel aging. This is the best American apple cider vinegar we’ve tasted, every bit on par with the fancy, expensive French stuff from Normandy.
Irish Black Butter
A conserve of apples, cider, brandy, and spices, Irish Black Butter has a uniquely deep, caramelized apple flavor with subtle spice notes and an almost earthy, smoky finish. It’s made by cooking down the country’s famous Armagh Bramley apples until they developed a rich molasses-like quality and warm complexity; the apples themselves have a Protected Geographic Indication recognized by the European Union. Irish Black Butter has an excellent smooth, spreadable texture that is a bit thicker than store-bought apple butters; it isn’t silky or gelatinous on the tongue but rather has a very fine granularity like any good homemade apple butter. We absolutely love this award-winning paste for its depth of flavor—it’s the best apple butter you’ll ever have.
Megachef Premium Oyster Flavored Sauce
Megachef Oyster Sauce is made with premium oysters that are harvested off the Gulf of Thailand and smoked over hardwood for a deeper flavor and smoky, grilled aroma. We love its complex yet clean flavor: robust and savory, slightly briny and almost sweet. Although it's prepared by cooking down oysters until their juices caramelize, this sauce does not taste like oysters; rather, it has a molasses-like richness and sweet, savory and umami flavor that's slightly similar to soy sauce. Megachef's version has no added artificial flavors or colors—in contrast, even high-quality brands tend to augment their oyster sauce with ingredients like MSG and caramel coloring, resulting in an artificial taste.
While oyster sauce is mostly used as an ingredient for marinades, stir-fries or flavoring rice or noodle dishes, Megachef's Oyster Sauce is also delicious on its own as a condiment—the sauce's smoother consistency compared to other brands is perfect for dipping or drizzling over dishes.
Mymouné Pomegranate Molasses
I discovered this Pomegranate Molasses from Mymouné through a Cambridge restaurant called Moona; the Lebanese company makes all of its products by hand in small batches, and their pomegranate molasses is the sharpest and brightest I have ever tasted. The bottle will last a long time, and it is so much better than the sweeter, less balanced supermarket products. It's a a powerhouse ingredient used throughout the cooking of the Middle East and the Caucasus region that I guarantee you'll love. — Christopher Kimball
The Toffee Merchant Classic Dark Toffee
The best toffee we’ve tried comes from The Toffee Merchant, a small-batch, award-winning confectioner in Arizona that produces tender, crunchy toffee that won’t break a tooth. Unlike any other toffee we’ve tried, this thick slab breaks easily into flaky pieces. Cooked slowly and using the highest quality ingredients, their Classic Dark Toffee is just the basics—done right. It balances sweet yet dark caramel notes with a buttery mixture of almonds and pecans and rich, dark chocolate. Don’t be surprised if you go through a bag in a day. This stuff is that addictive.
The Toffee Merchant Salted Espresso Toffee
The best toffee we’ve tried comes from The Toffee Merchant, a small-batch, award-winning confectioner in Arizona that produces tender, crunchy toffee that won’t break a tooth. Unlike any other toffee we’ve tried, this thick slab breaks easily into flaky pieces. Cooked slowly and using the highest quality ingredients, their Salted Espresso Toffee packs a punch of coffee flavor into the sweet dark chocolate. Caramel complements buttery pecans and almonds, but just the right amount of espresso powder and a pinch of salt add surprising depth. Don’t be surprised if you go through a bag in a day. This stuff is that addictive.
Villa Jerada Harissa
Villa Jerada’s Harissa No. 1 is our favorite version of this North African red pepper paste for its bright, complex flavor. While many store-bought varieties have a one-dimensional spicy flavor, this harissa layers acidity and fruitiness with preserved lemons, a touch of vinegar and tomato paste for a lively, tangy condiment. Villa Jerada uses just enough high-quality Moroccan olive oil to make the harissa spreadable and smooth without diluting its flavor, as opposed to conventional brands that contain a high proportion of water and vegetable oil.
Blossoms Syrup Pomegranate
The first ingredient in this Pomegranate Syrup by Blossoms Syrup is real pomegranate fruit juice concentrate, so the syrup actually tastes like pomegranate, not a laboratory formulation of what pomegranate should taste like. For the traditionalist who prefers pomegranate in their grenadine, this pure pomegranate syrup is a great option, as the fruit flavor doesn’t get lost or muddled. Winner of a Great Taste winner in 2018, it’s tart and tangy with just enough sweetness to keep it from tasting sour. It hits all the marks, and doesn’t contain any colorings or flavorings. Use it in cocktails or drizzle on desserts. We love it swirled into yogurt and granola.
Blossoms Syrup Passion Fruit
The first ingredient in this Passionfruit Syrup by Blossoms Syrup is real passion fruit juice concentrate, so the syrup actually tastes like passion fruit, not a laboratory formulation of what passion fruit should taste like. One of our favorites from the company, we see why this was the winner of a Great Taste award in 2012 and 2019. It’s sweet—but not cloyingly so—and levels out with a balanced tartness. It hits all the marks, and doesn’t contain any colorings or flavorings. Use it in cocktails or drizzle on desserts. The founders at Blossoms even like swirling it in yogurt.
Angkor Food Lemongrass Paste
Angkor Food's Lemongrass Paste is an all-purpose curry paste made with bright and aromatic lemongrass, makrut lime leaves and galangal, balanced out by earthy garlic, onion and turmeric; fish sauce gives the paste a savory and complex boost.
Mymouné Mulberry Preserves
This may be my favorite jam in the world, other than my favorite Sicilian Orange Marmalade. It is astonishingly refreshing and intriguing, with a flavor that balances sweetness and wild blueberry with wild herbs. It tastes undomesticated, as if it had been made in the far hills of some undiscovered country or something offered at the table in a Greek myth. It is great as a spread for pancakes (I love my own maple syrup but mulberry jam on pancakes is one of life’s rare treats), on toast, or on a fresh, hot corn muffin. Just delightful!
Mymouné Sundried Fig Preserves
This dense, intensely flavored Lebanese Sundried Fig Jam is perfectly balanced and only moderately sweet. It consists of 75% fruit, so you can taste all the richness of the figs. We like how the decadent, warm sweetness is accented and made more interesting by subtle savory notes from aniseed, while the sesame seeds in the jam enhance the figs' natural texture. This thick, decadent fig jam also has chunks of fruit for a more satisfying bite. Spread it with butter or ricotta on toast or in a sandwich. You can also feature it on a cheese tray, paired with creamy goat cheese, or even add a little to a meat stew to balance heavier flavors. Or smear a little between layers of carrot cake along with cardamom-scented cream cheese frosting.
Sfoglini x Sporkful Cascatelli
Otherwise known as “little waterfalls” in Italian, cascatelli was created to be an accessible pasta option that enhances the eating experience with maximized “forkability,” “sauceability” and “toothsinkability.” Made from high-quality North American wheats and slow-dried for over nine hours, Pashman’s succeeds in hitting all three categories. We love that it has a good toothsomeness and clean pasta flavor, plus there are no eggs in the dough which keeps it from being too rich and tender. The thing that really sets apart this experimental pasta shape though is the texture. Not only do the ruffles, frills, right turns and curved shape keep sauce clinging on, but each bite becomes a sensory experience for your mouth too. This pasta is the perfect form to serve with a chunky sauce, Rather than finding bits of sauce at the bottom of your bowl like you would with other kinds of pasta, cascatelli will hold on effortlessly.
Dreamfarm Fluicer
Squeezing fresh citrus can be painful and often shoots more juice across your counter and clothes than into your dish. But Dreamfarm’s “Fluicer,” cleverly named to combine “flat” and “juicer,” solves these citrus-squeezing problems. The handheld flat-folding juicer is smartly designed to squeeze citrus from side to side, not top to bottom like most manual juice presses. And it combines a clever hinge and two sturdy handles for an easy squeeze that requires much less force than other juicers we’ve tried (and still gets out all the juice).
The Fluicer can handle citrus of multiple sizes ranging from limes to grapefruits, a built-in strainer catches seeds and the dishwasher-safe squeezer folds completely flat for efficient storage—no more getting your drawer caught on rounded cups.