Review of Norlander’s Original Gluten-free Sauces

Last week I received samples from Norlander’s Original. There was a Teriyaki sauce and a Mesquite sauce – both gluten-free. The company has reformulated these sauces to be gluten-free, but until the samples arrived last week, I’d never even heard of Norlander’s Original. The company also sells gluten versions of these sauces. 

Excerpt from the Norlander’s Original website:

Tina and Michael Norlander continue the family tradition of providing quality products that enhance just about any food.  Michael’s father originally developed the family’s first Teriyaki marinade recipe in the 1960′s.  Friends and neighbors always enjoyed the food the Norlander’s prepared using their special marinade. By modifying and reducing it into a concentrate, Michael made the family’s teriyaki recipe his own. Michael later developed the Norlander’s Original Mesquite Sauce & Marinade Concentrate.  The Mesquite Sauce provides a western Mesquite smoke flavor and has been a winner from the start.

We used the concentrated Mesquite marinade for sautéed shrimp and thought it tasted pretty good. Shrimp and mesquite flavors don’t necessarily go that well together, but we didn’t know that until we tried it. Personally, I’m not a big fan of mesquite anything but my husband wants to use this sauce as a marinade for chicken. He thinks it will be very good used that way and he’s probably right. As stated on each bottle, the longer meat is marinated in the sauce, the stronger the flavor will be. In the case of the Mesquite sauce, I’m concerned that the flavor would possibly be too strong for my taste. However, I’ll determine that after I’ve used it as a marinade.

The Norlander’s Original Teriyaki sauce is in a whole different league for me. I used it as a marinade for pork and it was quite delicious that way. After mixing the sauce with water as directed, I tasted it and thought it was excellent. Since my pork marinade recipe calls for Teriyaki sauce, I added a bit of brown sugar and crushed garlic to the Norlander’s sauce. I covered the pork chops with the sauce and let them marinate for about half an hour. The baked pork chops were out of this world tender and delicious. It was the best version of my teriyaki pork marinade I’ve ever made. I’ll try it with chicken next time around and possibly even steak when grilling season rolls around again.

If I was grading the sauces I’d givethe Mesquite sauce a B- and I’d give the Teriyaki sauce an A+. When weather permits, we’ll grill up something that has been marinated in the Mesquite sauce to see how we like it that way. In the mean time, I’ll be looking for ways to use the Teriyaki sauce. It might even be nice to mix it into our turkey meatloaf, which we enjoy during the colder months. Somehow we sort of skipped fall here and all of a sudden winter arrived, so we’ll probably have meatloaf pretty soon. I will also try the cream cheese spread recipe that calls for the Teriyaki marinade to be mixed into softened cream cheese. This seems like an odd combination to me, but apparently it’s quite the hit with people who’ve tried it at tasting parties.   

Norlander’s Original gluten-free sauces are sold online and at some retailers. There is not a list of stores that carry the products on the website but you might e-mail the company and ask if there is a store near you that sells it. The thing that is really nice about these products is that you use your own water to mix with the concentrated sauces. This means the sauce will last quite a while but it also indicates that the product is environmentally friendly – or green if you will. I like supporting such products when I have the opportunity.

Special thanks to Norlander’s Original for my tasting samples!