It started with a desire for something to eat while studying or driving between Lafayette and Baton Rouge that wasn’t fast food.

From there, Michelle Vallot’s idea grew, first into an energy bar and then into a salsa, made without preservatives and without vinegar.

Zydeco Salsa, which comes in three flavors, can be found in stores across Acadiana. Its colorful jars have an accordion and illustrate the ingredients featured in the tomato-based salsas – sweet potato in the Sweet Potato salsa, red beans in the Red Bean Salsa and celery, garlic and bell peppers in the Creole Trinity.

“It’s really how you make something and the care you take in making sure that things are right,” Vallot said. “No vinegar, no chemicals. It’s fabulous and it’s uniquely different.

“The taste is clean.”

Creating Zydeco Salsa

When Vallot was in law school in the early ’90s, she felt there was something lacking from her food choices – a healthy snack to fuel her rides from Lafayette to Southern University in Baton Rouge for classes or her late-night study sessions.

“I told those guys (I carpooled with) ‘when I get out of school, I’m gonna make a nutrition bar,'” she said. “And they said, ‘sure, Vallot, sure.'”

After law school, she made good on that declaration. Vallot started making a fig cookie in her late first husband’s memory in about 1997. It eventually evolved into the Zydeco Bar, a sweet potato nutrition bar, that Vallot first produced in her FDA-approved bakery before contracting out the manufacturing.

But Vallot always knew she wanted her brand to have more products. While going to California in 2013 for a food show she and her salesman decided they’d create a Louisiana salsa.

“It’s my brand, our idea,” the Breaux Bridge woman said. “Who’s doing a sweet potato salsa? Nobody. A red bean salsa? Nobody. A creole trinity? Nobody. It’s about Louisiana.”

While Vallot has pulled back production of the Zydeco Bar for now, Zydeco Salsa can be found in grocery stores throughout Lafayette, Acadiana, Baton Rouge, and New Orleans –stores like Rouses, Natural Grocers, Fresh Market, Total Wine, Hebert’s Market, Champagne’s, Breaux Mart and many more.

The salsa can be used as a traditional dip but Vallot also recommends using it while cooking. The Creole Trinity could be used as a sauce with fish, shrimp or chicken. The Sweet Potato could make a sauce for a stuffed duck. The Red Bean could be mixed with hummus for a football party.

Growing Zydeco Foods

Creating and running Zydeco Foods hasn’t been easy. Unlike the legal proceedings she’s been a part of as an attorney for more than two decades, the food business has been complicated, challenging and takes a lot of follow-through, Vallot said. But she continues to create.

“I love art. I love different. I love ideas,” Vallot said. “That’s why I’m still doing Zydeco Salsa.”

Vallot said she’d like to see Zydeco Salsa grow into a product that’s distributed nationwide. She’s also said she’s thought about growing the brand and adding new products, possibly bringing back the Zydeco Bar.

“I have other ideas,” she said. “But it would always be about nutrition and good tasting and clean food because I think that’s very important.”