Gwynedd Stuart
Finding the best mole sauce at the grocery store is a tall order. Believe me—I tried. Mole comes in a wide variety of colors, flavors, and styles, but the bulk of what you’ll find at the grocery store is the dark brownish-red kind that consists of chile peppers, nuts and seeds, and cocoa. And most of it comes in the form of a paste that needs to be reconstituted with chicken broth or water. For the most part, those mole pastes need additional dressing up in order for them to resemble the rich, creamy mole sauce you’d find in a Mexican restaurant (for instance, this recipe calls for peanut butter and Mexican hot chocolate).
What I wanted to find was mole sauce that’s ready to roll right out of the jar or carton. Mole sauce that approximates a creamy, dreamy, savory-sweet mole sauce you can simply mix with some shredded chicken for chicken mole tacos, or dump over a plate of chicken thighs and rice and call it a day. I tried a handful of nationally available brands and only found one I thought was good enough to rank. If you’re reading this and you have suggestions, do drop them in the comments; we’re always updating our rankings and would be thrilled to update this list with more options. But in the meantime, this is the best store bought mole sauce we found.
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- Rogelio Bueno Ready to Serve Mole Sauce
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Rogelio Bueno mole sauce tastes good. It’s complex—nutty and savory and just a touch bitter. You can tell it actually contains cocoa, along with toasty sesame seeds and dried peppers. It has a good amount of heat, too, which I really loved. A lot of the prepared mole sauce we taste tested, whether it came in a jar or a carton, just didn’t have the right mix of flavors. Some had way too much cumin. Others tasted more like jerk sauce than mole sauce. If you slow cook this in a skillet with some chicken thighs, it’s going to fulfill a craving. It may not be the best mole sauce in the world and it may not live up to what you’re used to being served at your favorite Mexican restaurant (I live in Los Angeles! I’ve eaten at Guelaguetza, the city’s most famous Oaxacan restaurant! Believe me, I get it!), but it’s the best store bought mole sauce we’ve found so far.
Best Mole Sauce
Other products we tried: 365 Mole Negro, Doña Maria Mole Sauce (paste), Doña Maria Ready to Serve Mole Sauce, La Costeña Hot Mole (paste), Aplenty Mole
Will Morgan
Joe Rumrill
Jordan Myrick
I don’t know that I’ve seen the Rogelio Bueno in the stores in this area (N Idaho), but it may be carried at a Mexican market in Spokane. I check next time I’m over there. I’ve usually used the Dona Maria Mole paste, adding some tomato sauce, Mexican chocolate and some peanut butter to it for additional flavor. My first discovery of Mole was when I was going to a language school in Cuernavaca, Mx many years ago and I was hooked.
Looking at the list of foods, you purchase from Trader Joe’s, I’ve not tried most of the items…roast my own coffee and drink black but since I live fairly close to the center of the US apple growing region (WA) and have my own apple trees Golden Delicious and Fuji, I’ll have to say those off my own trees, IMO, blow away any store bought apples, including Honey Crisp. However, I found a species called Ever Crisp at a local store last year that is a cross between a Fuji and a Honeycrisp that has become my favorite store-bought apple.
I’m making mole today for dinner using the Dona Maria Mole paste and out of curiosity, I googled best commercial Mole sauce and found your site and review. I’ll try to Rogelio Bueno on the next go around with Mole.