What is the difference between salsa and picante sauce?

Answer 1

Picante is salsa. Picante is to salsa as grape is to jelly or Taurus is to Ford. It's just a variety of salsa. "Picante" means "spicy," so salsa picante is "spicy sauce." There are also sweet salsas and sour salsas.

To add to the correction, "salsa" simply means "sauce." So Picante is just a description of the sauce, or salsa, and it indeed means "spicy," or, perhaps, "sharp." In Spanish, it would be "Salsa Picante," but companies like Pace call it Picante Sauce.

^ Picante is a Spanish adjective that derives from picar, or "to sting," it refers to the feeling caused by the salsa on a persons tongue.

And to correct the original answer, pico de gallo in much of Northern Mexico is a non-saucy mix of chopped tomatoes, onions, chiles, and so on. Farther south, it is made with jicama and orange, and is another thing entirely.

Now it's my turn. To the second editor: if picante sauce supposedly "is a type of salsa," as you say, then how could there the same brand of both products sitting side-by-side on a shelf, as if they were different things--as if picante sauce was a completely separate thing from salsa?

Also, how could there be a "spicy salsa" and a "non-spicy salsa" (non-picante) if both types have their medium and *hot* versions along with the mild version (which means that they *both* can be spicy)?

I can see this is not a good place for getting answers, despite the website's name.