Feeling Saucy?

By Naperville Magazine
Appears in the August 2023 issue.

By Peter Gianopulos

Gindo’s offers a nuanced variety of refined flavors

If you want to play the frat-boy fool and slather your next batch of wings with a hot sauce designed to burn off the top layer of your taste buds that’s your prerogative. Sweat it out if you enjoy that sort of thing. Chris and Mary Ginder certainly aren’t going to judge you. But they do believe, as owners of Gindo’s Spice of Life sauces, that there are benefits to packing your pantry with a few refined hot sauces as well. Over the years, they’ve perfected hundreds of nuanced ingredient pairings. Think roasted zucchini and habaneros with an undercurrent of Parmesan. A hot sauce that tastes like French onion soup. Even collaborations with local craft breweries, one of which fuses together yellows peppers with lemon-flavored hard seltzers. The common denominator in all these sauces? They’re made from farm-raised peppers, all raised within a 30-mile radius of the Ginders’ facility in St. Charles. “Our sauces are meant to showcase the complex flavors of these amazing peppers,” Chris says. “They’re meant to accentuate, not overwhelm, whatever you serve them with.” You can use the Ginders’ sauces as dressings, spread atop burgers, and as steak sauce. Or do like Mary and spike some whipped cream with a little honey habanero sauce and serve it atop a brownie. Their versatility is limitless. Which is why their Gindo’s sauces (short for Ginder) are being gobbled up at local farmers markets and fests (including the Naperville Artisan Market) and sold at grocery stores and delis.

Photo: Gindo’s Spice of Life