Snack Bar Vol. 3: Welcome to the Cantina

First up is Siete, named for the co-founder's family of seven who started her on her journey towards making real foods. Their products use high-quality ingredients to deliver "salud y sabor" – health and flavor – from grain-free tortilla chips to totopos made from organic corn. We sampled the latter and found all three flavors delicious, especially appreciating the oversized shape that ensured even the broken chips were still satisfying. The Sea Salt variety was well salted, the Lime flavor didn't taste synthetic, and the Blue Corn had a heft we all enjoyed. All in all, they felt the most "classic" of the bunch, though touches like frying in avocado oil made them decidedly of-the-moment.

This product was a bit of an oddball, but still addictive in its own right. More than the other chips, these tasted like real tortillas – they had a slightly charred flavor reminiscent of tortillas burnt on a griddle. But we were all surprised to learn that they were made from white corn: we were absolutely positive they were flour-based based on the flavor. For flour tortilla lovers, that's great news, but Team Corn will be glad to know that the corn is nixtamalized (aka bathed in a lime solution that enhances the corn's nutritional value). If these weren't our #1 choice when it comes to flavor, the texture is a pretty solid selling point: they're thick enough to come out of that salsa bowl still intact.

Depending on your familiarity with Mexican cuisine, cactus might sound like the world's most random ingredient to spotlight here. Yet cactus features prominently in many Mexican dishes, making it a natural pinch hitter when it comes to grain-free chips. It does, however, impart a very different texture, so our team was split when it came to this product. Some of us thought they were a little bland; others enjoyed them a lot, comparing them to Pop Chips. It's best to adjust expectations and not expect a traditional tortilla chip here, but grain-free eaters should definitely give them a go.

Last but not least is our favorite of the bunch: Vista Hermosa's crunchy, salty, unimpeachable totopos. While the Blue Corn chips with "flash of lime" were tasty, covered in a lime powder that gave them real tang, and the spicy Red Corn chips had an earthiness we all were won over by, the true masterpiece is the humble Sea Salted variety. It's everything you could want in a tortilla chip: from the undeniably corn-centric taste to the ideal thickness and size, we devoured the entire bag without hesitation.

For whatever reason, most of the new, buzzy sauces were also available in-store only. That hasn't stopped Credo's Cashew Queso from getting huge word-of-mouth response in the plant-based community, and when the product tastes this much like cheese it's easy to see why. We missed the Velveeta-esque consistency of a traditional queso dip, and found this one a little runnier than we'd hoped, but there's no denying the flavor marks for a vegan product. It's a fantastic alternative as far as queso is concerned, and one we're already recommending to our friends who abstain.

Available nationwide in Whole Foods, Mesa Salsa was founded by a mother-daughter duo inspired by their grandmothers' recipes. Though the front of the Medium Green Salsa tub advertises that it's made with "fresh California avocados," it doesn't have the thick, creamy texture we associate with avocado sauces. That's not a knock against it whatsoever: we were super impressed with how fresh-tasting and herby this salsa was, with the tomatillo, cilantro and serrano pepper coming through loud and clear. Spice lovers might want to seek out something with a little more kick, but this is a crowd-pleasing green salsa that we were happy to chow down on.

First, a quick vocab lesson: in Spanish, botana can refer to a wide spectrum of foods, from chips out of a bag to small plate appetizers. It's no surprise, then, that the Botana Sauces from Siete are super wide-ranging: their Chamoy is meant for fruits and cocktail rims; the spicy Habanero for quesadillas and wings; Jalapeño for chips and other salty snacks; and the Traditional Botana Sauce is great for tostadas, potatoes and/or mixed into a bowl of chili. It's hard to pick a favorite when they've all got different strengths, but we were most pleasantly surprised by the tart, tangy Chamoy sauce. Pairing that with a fruit-flavored margarita sounds like our idea of heaven.

If you thought all chili peppers were created equal, think again: each of the cuatro chiles in this salsa brings something to the table. The combination of ancho, serrano, chile de arbol and chile peppers yields a salsa that's incredibly complex, with an almost fruity flavor that offsets the punch of spice. Every time we went back for another dip we found a new tasting note, loving the contrasts that added up to some unbelievable balance. This was a perfect, classically red salsa that still packed some unexpected tricks up its sleeve.