Homemade Lizano sauce?

January 25, 2010 12:18 PM

Anybody have a recipe for a homemade version of Lizano sauce? I've been buying it online, but it's kind of expensive that way and seems a bit frivolous having it shipped such a long way. Surely it can't be difficult to make, right?
posted by redheadeb to Food & Drink (8 answers total)

"The ingredients include water, sugar, salt, vegetables (onions, carrots, cauliflower, cucumbers), spices, acetic acid, pepper, starch, hydrolyzed corn protein, mustard, turmeric, sodium benzoate, sodium bisulfite, and sulfur dioxide."

You could just experiment with the ingredients, they're all relatively inexpensive. Acetic acid is vinegar, starch could maybe be corn starch, hydrolyzed corn protein and the last three ingredients listed are probably not needed.
posted by mareli at 12:57 PM on January 25, 2010

FYI here is a U.S. source for the prepared sauce.
posted by bearwife at 1:01 PM on January 25, 2010

Not sure it would be that easy to make (it's similar to Worcestershire sauce, which can be used as a substitute, and I wouldn't try to make that). This place sells it by the bottle and by the case. A case of 10 23.6 oz bottles is $70 with free shipping, so it's not bad. Or an annual subscription for $140 - they send you one bottle per month for a year. At $7/bottle for the case, it's about the same as worcestershire is in the local store, so I don't think its overpriced (cumulatively it adds up obviously, but at least you're not getting ripped off).
posted by melissasaurus at 1:14 PM on January 25, 2010

When I went to the US, I found it in a Safeway in the Latino section. I bought 12 bottles to bring home to my ecstatic Salsa Lizano addicted DH. I might be tempted to work on finding it more locally or cheaply.

I agree that this may well be like the Worcestershire sauce problem for making. But I really hope that someone posts that they have a recipe that works since I don't cross the border that often and our stash is long gone.

Melissasaurus, the problem is that salsa lizano is consumed more like ketchup in volume than like Worcestershire sauce, and it is used as a sauce and as a flavouring and so it is consumed far quicker and is more expensive than it appears.
posted by kch at 1:24 PM on January 25, 2010

You should also browse through the posts on Chowhound, there are a bunch of posts in the last 5 yrs re salsa lizano. Depending on where you live, a Latin American or international market might carry it, or they might be willing to order it if you ask (esp. if you get your friends to go in and ask for it too). It's a proprietary formula I think, and I feel like it's so common/available in Costa Rica, that locals have no incentive to re-create it themselves.
posted by melissasaurus at 2:19 PM on January 25, 2010

just found this 1/2 gallon of lizano available online for $6.95. Not sure of shipping cost though (they ship to the US via UPS, but I didn't see shipping charges on the site), and the site is in spanish, but it's the cheapest I've seen.
posted by melissasaurus at 2:26 PM on January 25, 2010

Response by poster: Thanks for the purchasing suggestions, but I live in Iowa and "exotic" stuff like this is difficult at best and possibly impossible to find. There may be communities that sell it but I don't know of any place that might sell Costa Rican products. Plus, I really want to make it myself, partly because I want to lower the salt content. I have made (vegan) Worcestershire sauce myself and am not (yet) daunted.

I'll continue scanning the Chowhound threads, but so far all I've seen are posts asking where to buy it.

So, still searching. I will start experimenting, but was hoping for some guidance.
posted by redheadeb at 12:36 AM on January 26, 2010

post back or memail me if you pull this off, I myself would love a copy of the recipe, but don't have time to experiment on this.
posted by kch at 7:39 PM on January 27, 2010