Condiments put to the taste test from tomato sauce to mayo

Make your next sausage sizzle soar with our guide to backyard barbie condiments.

Tip: Mayonnaise will turn the outside of a toasted sandwich crisp and golden if butter isn't at hand.

Tomato sauce

Heinz Organic Tomato Ketchup, 500ml, $4.30

Score: 1.5/5

Good on Heinz for its organic certification, but the multinational needs to tone down the acidity in this ketchup. A lot. Only suitable for making bad meat pies marginally better.

MasterFoods Aussie Farmers Tomato Sauce, 500ml, $3.15

Score: 2.5/5

Aussie farmers get a fair shake of the sauce bottle with this snag-enhancer made from 97 per cent local ingredients. (Its standard sits at 30 per cent.) Not too salty, not too sweet , not too exciting.

Rosella Tomato Sauce,580ml, $2.65

Score: 4/5

Also made from at least 98 per cent Australian ingredients, this pantry classic bursts with big red flavour. Your go-to for a hot chip sanger slathered in butter.

Barbecue sauce

Bull's-Eye Original BBQ Sauce, 300ml, $3.99

Score: 1.5/5

Heavy with "smoke flavouring", maltodextrin and molasses, this is the one-dimensional taste of a steakhouse chain where staff line dance to Achy Breaky Heart.

ETA Original Barbecue Sauce, 375ml, $2.75

Score: 0.5/5

You don't need to read the bottle to know the main ingredient of ETA's iconic sauce is sugar. This should be stocked in the same aisle as jelly babies and Chomps.

Stubb's Original Legendary Bar-B-Q Sauce, 510ml, $5.99

Score: 3.5/5

Stubb was a real-life Texan pitmaster who died in 1995, and although the supermarket version of his tomato-forward sauce could be thicker, I dig its friendly punch of black pepper.

Mayonnaise

Hellmann's Real Mayonnaise, 400g, $6.20

Score: 3.5/5

By appointment to Her Majesty The Queen, oh la la. This creamy rapeseed oil-based mayo is potato salad-worthy but needs a dash more vinegar to make it sing.

Praise Traditional Creamy Mayonnaise, 365g, $3.40

Score: 1/5

A sugary Aussie stalwart since 1964, there's no shortage of three-digit numbers and vegetable gums in this mayo. This tastes like it was made ina lab and we deserve better.

S&W Whole Egg Mayonnaise, 440g, $6

Score: 2/5

There's a gentle pine aroma to this, which may be to do with the added rosemary extract. It also has a cloying finish, which is almost definitely related to the presence of corn syrup.

Dijon mustard

Chef's Choice Premium French Dijon Mustard, 200g, $3.29

Score: 0.5/5

Smells like a butcher's armpit; tastes like mustard seeds steeped in soap. A product of France, sure, but so is the guillotine, Kronenbourg and performance art. Avoid.

Maille Dijon Originale, 215g, $4

Score: 4/5

Robust, versatile, balanced and bright, Maille is the home kitchen's most valuable player when it comes to sharpening a stew and supercharging roast chook. So very, very good for the price.

Coles Dijon Mustard, 200g, $2

Score: 2.5/5

With added sugar and a third fewer mustard seeds than the others, this tastes spookily close to the yellow stuff McDonald's squirts on cheeseburgers. Certainly, there are way more offensive things in life.