Saba Tseggai is no stranger to the flavor that awaze sauce brings to food. Families in Eritrea and Ethiopia have been home-blending berbere spice for centuries to create their own awaze sauce recipes. Saba’s Awaze Sauce puts a twist on the traditional recipes, creating a blend between modern and traditional flavors and opening the doors to an amazing awaze sauce.
With roots tying back to Eritrea and Ethiopia, awaze sauce has been a staple in Saba’s life from a young age. Now, Saba is passionate about incorporating her Eritrean/Ethiopian culture into her cooking. She has learned that “food is not only a medium to share with others, but also to learn about diverse tastes, geographies, histories, and cultures.” Awaze sauce is a way for Saba to share her rich culture with communities around the world.
Before launching her food business, Saba worked in finance to support her two children and help send her daughter to college in hopes of opening up a world of possibilities for her. In doing so, Saba unknowingly opened new doors for herself.
With her daughter in college, Saba began sending her daughter the awaze sauce to help spice up the dining hall food. Eventually, Saba’s daughter had more sauce than she knew what to do with and began sharing them with her college friends. Each time Saba heard back from her daughter, more and more friends were requesting orders! Soon enough, even the parents of her daughter's friends were requesting the sauce. Saba quickly realized the demand was there for the unique awaze sauce; there wasn’t anything like it in the U.S. markets.
After seeing the high demand the sauces generated with her daughter’s friends and families, Saba was ready to fully commit. Saba was excited to launch her food business but didn’t know what steps to take to establish her food business. After researching various options, Saba joined the Union Kitchen Accelerator, looking for support in launching her brand and bringing the awaze sauce to market. Thus, Sunny Dreams LLC was born, named after her mother, Tsehai, which translates to “sunny” in English.
Saba used the shared kitchen for research and development, refining and scaling her recipes. Ethiopian spice and cuisine use a wide variety of spices that can be difficult to find. Even the soil the spices are grown in plays a major role in the flavor, making it difficult to standardize her finished product. After reaching out to Sarah Masoni, the Director of Product and Process Development at Oregon State’s Food Innovation Center, the two got to work and perfected Saba’s recipe.
With her mission and recipes set, Saba is ready to go. Awaze sauce is the perfect hot sauce that adds delicious flavors to any meal. The sauce can be used in all sorts of meals, ranging from chicken and beef to vegetarian options, or even as a flavor bomb in grains like rice, quinoa, and even in soups. While awaze sauce has been a staple in Ethiopia and Eritrea for ages, Saba is bringing it to your kitchen at home.
Saba’s Awaze sauces are available in 2 Flavors: Original and Awaze Gold. The sauces are available for order on their website and in Union Kitchen stores.
Comments