Howdy,
I like to ask people how they discovered Chicaoji and how they like to use it. I get fun and interesting responses. It occurred to me that y’all might like to read these too so I’m sharing a few of them.
So here ya go.
Randall

P.S. You can view recipes and submit your own on the Share a Chicaoji recipe page.

Hi Randall,

Thank you so much for the updates! We are so very thankful for your amazing saucy business!

I’m actually buying the small bottle so they can be filled and kept in our vehicles as needed. We absolutely love chicaoji! [Partner] absolutely loved the gallon jug [for his birthday a few months ago] of it and is currently about halfway through it. I’m sure you will be getting an order from us in the near future!

Best,
J.

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Hi Randall, Thanks so much for your email! It’s very cool to hear from you. I’d be happy to tell you about how I learned about the wonderous substance you christened Chicaoji. It’s pretty straightforward. I was a summer camp counselor at Four Winds on Orcas for a few years. Someone else from camp discovered Chicaoji at the Island Market in East Sound and it quickly became popular among us. Over the years I’ve had friends who live on Orcas bring me bottles when they’ve visited, but I only recently discovered that you have a website that takes orders! Now I can get enough for my friends and family to enjoy too… I’m not particularly sophisticated in my use of Chicaoji – I usually use it as a condiment on sandwiches / burgers or as a dipping sauce. I find that it goes incredibly well with any type of quesadilla. Hope that answers your questions well. Best regards!
N.W.
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Hi Randall, I’d be happy to tell you how I discovered Chicaoji. I was chatting with a co-worker on a call yesterday who now lives in San Jose, CA but he grew up on San Juan. He discovered your sauce in local restaurants and grocery stores while he was there. We were talking about how he likes to cook breakfast now that he is working from home and told me about how he likes to make an egg dish and douse it in Chicaoji. His description and love for it made me want to instantly buy my own bottle to try. He is at the bottom of a gallon and is worried that he is getting too low on it!
S.O.
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Hi Randall, I discovered Chicaoji through my sister and her family who live full-time on Orcas. From my understanding you have a bit of a cult following up there 🙂 very cool! They are big time fans who I believe met you at a farmers market on Orcas several years back. My wife and I, along with my brother have been hooked ever since. We have also turned a couple friends on to Chicaoji down here in San Diego – hence the large order. We like to use Chicaoji on pizza, burritos and other mexican dishes, breakfast eggs, roasted veggies, deli-style sandwiches. My wife is pregnant so she puts it on just about everything hahaha.
J.C.
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Hi guys! We were staying at the Edenwild for a few days and were getting groceries at the store there in town and randomly tried your sauce in the deli, it is so damn good, bought the bigger bottle, but if we would have known you had a 1/2 gallon i would have bought that one for memories. Keep up the awesome!
P.N.
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Thanks so much for the wonderful sauce. It came today ,I appreciate the quick delivery with all this going on. I actually got introduced to your brand in Colorado a few years back and have been hunting it down trying to find it everywhere. I just remember it being my favorite hot sauce I have ever had. So I’m stoked to have it back! ♡♡♡ thanks so much. I’m excited to put it on everything. Really looking forward to it.
C.S.
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I am actually from Seattle, a major fan, and a self proclaimed chicaoji ambassador haha. I live in Denver, but when people ask what my favorite hot sauce is, I try to get them a bottle of the good stuff. Normally I have my padre send some out, but with these crazy times I wanted to make sure I was getting it straight from the source to support local.
S.V.
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I use the sauce on most things I eat–eggs, tuna melts (see attached picture), soup and anything with tomatoes. You can call me a Chicaoji addict…but it’s good for my health, so I’m ok with that.
R.
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Yay I’m so excited!! My friend has family in Washington state and the two of us love different hot sauces (so much so we bought all the ones from Hot Ones and tested the). When I tasted it I was immediately obsessed and had to find a way to get it! I put it on everything from wings, chicken sausage as a dipping sauce. My parents are both chefs in Chicago and I had them taste it and my dad made it into a salad dressing mixed with blueberries, balsamic, and oil…so yummy!!
M.S.
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A good friend of mine lives out in Oak Harbor – herself and her husband are stationed out there with the navy – and found your hot sauce. It’s the perfect amount of kick for making pork quesadillas and recently doing a brown mushroom gravy which gets a major boost from your sauce. I’m having to drop weight – so natural sauces and such have been instrumental in helping me drop 25 lbs over the past 6 months. I’m tempted to use the sauce along with a pecan rub and have my pork tenderloin marinade overnight and then do an applewood/pecan smoke to set everything off. Smokey, sweet, and then your sauces kick should do well on the BBQ. I’m kicking around other ideas – but I’m almost out of the sauce – hence buying more. As for specific recipes – if I have exact measurements, I’ll forward them along. I tend to deploy a lot with the Army – so I’ll write when I get back in the states. Thank you for the personal email – rare to see these nowadays hence my reply. I love the stuff and look forward to enjoying it more!
R.S.

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Thanks for the prompt shipment – we’re already enjoying the new bottles. My wife and I love Lopez and typically visit several times a year, although we haven’t been since Covid started to protect everyone’s safety.

We enjoyed the question about how we first learned of Chicaoji, as it prompted us to revisit fond memories of past trips. My wife thinks we first tasted Chicaoji at Setsunai, but I remember it first at the Poutine Your Mouth truck at the farmers’ market. We were staying at Edenwild for our honeymoon and hit up pretty much all of the island restaurants that week, so details are blurry.

Either way, the taste was memorable. I grabbed a bottle at the village market and saved it to put in my wife’s stocking at Christmas. Big hit! We finally ran out last week and my wife noticed on the bottle that we could order online, so I jumped on it.

We are excited to check out the recipes and look forward to receiving the newsletter with new additions. We typically have used it on eggs or Mexican tostadas and fajitas so far. That’s my typical first meal of the day – sauteed onion, peppers, shiitake mushrooms and jalapeno. Smother a tostada or soft tortilla with avocado and/or sour cream, add the sauteed veggies and generous dollops of Chicaoji, and top with a fried egg.

Cheers to healthy eating! We’ll look for you next time we’re on island.

B.D.

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Hello Randall,
I hope you’re doing well.
Just FYI, we got some takeout seafood gumbo from a local cajun restaurant here – a restaurant with a pretty good reputation. The gumbo was remarkable unexciting. We added a little Chicaoji and that turned something that was fairly flat into a dish that everyone thought was truly great.
Thanks again.
Note: Chicaoji Lopez Island chicken wings for dinner tonight.
J.P.

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Hi Randall,

Thanks for the update! I tried to savor the last growler so it lasted my quite a long time! I also used the jug for a terrarium after 🙂 I use it on virtually anything – pizza, tacos, pasta, etc. I got some for my parents and they like pouring some over cream cheese and eating it with crackers.

I found out about Chicaoji when a friend bought me a bottle for my birthday. She would pick it up whenever she visited her mom on Lopez Island.

I will def check out the recipes, thanks! And if I think of anything beyond just “pour it on this and eat it,” I will definitely submit.
J.K.
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