NOT QUITE TACO BELL MILD TACO SAUCE
1 cup water
2 ounces tomato paste, 2 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon
1 tablespoon white vinegar
1 1/4 teaspoons chili powder
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon cayenne
1/8 teaspoon xanthan gum
Whisk all of the ingredients, except the xanthan gum, in a medium saucepan. Very gradually sprinkle the xanthan gum over the sauce and briskly whisk in. Bring to a boil, then reduce and simmer 5 minutes. Turn off the heat and cover until cool. Store in the refrigerator.
Makes about 1 cup or 16 tablespoons
Do not freeze
Per Tablespoon: 4 Calories; trace Fat; trace Protein; 1g Carbohydrate; trace Dietary Fiber; .5g Net Carbs
This is a recipe from the Top Secret Recipes website, but I ended up tweaking it a bit. As the recipe was written, it really doesn't taste much at all like the real Taco Bell sauce so I added some cumin. That helped a bit, but the tomato flavor is a little too strong and it's lacking some heat and the flavor of some canned pickled jalapeño slices. I thickened mine with xanthan gum instead of cornstarch like the bottled version. I'll have to work on this recipe a bit more to get it just right, but I mainly use this type of sauce to moisten my taco meat for Taco Salads and I think it will work fine as it is. This works out to be a lot cheaper than buying the bottled Taco Bell hot sauce, which costs around $1.29 for a 7 1/2 ounce bottle. This version costs about 20¢ to make from scratch and you get half an ounce more.