Messia Foods Mexican Sauces
Prepare tasty Mexican cuisine with seasoning sauces made just outside Lebanon.
When perusing the grocery store shelves, there are more sauce options than you’d care to count. Now, two locally made sauces from Messia Foods (pronounced messy-uh) join the ranks and offer a way to prepare quick Mexican dishes. So what makes Messia sauces special? A lot.
Tonya Collins, creator of Messia Foods, says the recipes for her sauces have been in her family for generations. “My grandmother cooked them her whole life and they got passed down,” she says. “Our family has been eating these sauces as long as I can remember. When I go to social functions, people want me to bring the sauces and nothing else.”
Another reason Messia sauces are so special is because there are no taste-altering preservatives. “There are a lot of commercially made sauces with preservatives which give a sour taste that traditionally isn’t there,” Collins says. “I decided not to include those ingredients to provide an authentic flavor.”
Collins makes a point to keep her sauces family-friendly. She says that a lot of people think Mexican food has to be spicy, but that’s not necessarily the case. “It’s flavorful, as opposed to spicy,” Collins says. “You can always add more spice, but you can’t take it out once it’s in.”
Collins, who has been cooking her whole life, says Mexican families celebrate every occasion with food. “Getting together to eat and socialize is absolutely part of the culture,” she says. “Some of that gets lost by the wayside with life as busy as it is, so I wanted to make it quick and easy for people to make an authentic Mexican dinner.”
Messia offers two sauces, Chile Rojo and Chile Verde, to be poured over the meat of your choice while it cooks. The red sauce is traditionally served over beef or chicken, and the green sauce typically goes with pork or chicken. Collins says all you have to do is place the raw meat in a slow cooker or oven, pour the sauce over it, then cook it until the meat is as tender as you like. “And voilà, you have dinner,” she says.
Collins stays true to her grandmother’s traditional recipes, with one minor change to the green sauce. “The Chile Verde is normally very smooth, but I leave it a little chunkier than the original,” she says. “We start with fresh produce, so it has a fresh look as well as a fresh taste.”
Messia Foods sauces became available in select stores in July 2011. “When they hit grocery store shelves, it was exciting to see other people liked the sauces, too—not just family and friends,” Collins says. Recipes to accompany the sauces are available at messiafoods.com.
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WANT TO GET IT?
You can find Messia Foods sauces locally at Price Cutter, Harter House and Hy-Vee. Or shop online at messiafoods.com.