Minnesota’s Best Locally Made Food & Drink Products

Though it began across the border in Wisconsin, Curt’s Special Recipe is now a Stillwater staple. The brand was founded by Curt and Betty Hollister in their home kitchen and popularized at farmers markets. As they looked to retire, they took on business partners. 

Curt’s salsas and sauces are still crafted by hand in small batches but now stocked in co-ops and grocery stores across the Midwest. The Triple Hot Salsa packs serious heat, while the Cilantro Lime and Black Bean Chipotle blends offer milder, crowd-pleasing alternatives. 

The lineup also includes barbecue sauce, homestyle ketchup, and a bold Bloody Mary Mix.

This third-generation, family-run turkey farm in Cannon Falls has been putting free-range birds on Thanksgiving tables since 1939, but its on-site grocery store is a year-round destination for all things turkey. Its gobblers are raised without antibiotics and naturally processed. 

In addition to whole turkeys, breasts, wings, drumsticks and offal, the family makes turkey summer sausage, turkey burgers, uncured cranberry turkey sticks, and the most Midwestern turkey brats — stuffed with beer, cheese curds, and wild rice.

Susan Brown is a pastry chef turned chocolatier and beekeeper who fell in love with urban hives during a trip to Paris. She started her label in 2011, crafting bonbons in small batches using 100 percent single-origin organic cacao and honey harvested from her own rooftop apiary. 

Her award-winning chocolates are bitter and sweet in equal measure — “just like life,” says Brown. Swing by her intimate St. Paul atelier to sample her signature honey bonbons or an artisan chocolate bar in Minnesota-inspired flavors like cranberry wild rice and chaga (a mushroom foraged from birch trees).

Minnesota is one of the fittest states in the nation, so it makes sense we’d support a homegrown energy bar. Founded by Rogers-based couple Jake and Rachel Beaudry, Rawr Organics stands out in a crowded space because of how wholesome and fresh their products are — high in protein (20g!), low in sugar, organic, plant-based, and kosher-certified with “no fake anything.” 

Rawr’s premium bars are gluten-, dairy-, egg-, and soy-free. They come in 12 fun flavors (including Double Dark Chocolate Mint and seasonal Pumpkin Pecan) and always start with the same eight ingredients: pea protein, nut or seed butter, coconut nectar, ground flaxseed, cold-pressed coconut oil, dark chocolate, blackstrap molasses, and Himalayan pink sea salt.

Alise Sjostrom, the redhead behind this beloved local creamery, also happens to be its president, CEO, and cheesemaker-in-chief. She churned out her first batch in 2013 and opened a cheese-making facility on her family’s farm the following year. 

Today, her award-winning dairy goods are sold in specialty markets throughout Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, and the Dakotas, and via a cheese shop, cafe, and tasting room on site — the most fun way to figure out which Redhead product (clothbound garlic cheddar? Minnesota whiskey-washed Muenster?) is your favorite. 

Also new since 2024 is a working whey distillery, winery, and speakeasy, which can be toured separately from the farm with advance booking.

The Red Lake Indian Reservation in Northern Minnesota, home to the Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians, is approximately 30 miles north of Bemidji. It’s best known for its Indian-grown, Indian-harvested premium dark-roasted wild rice, which you can buy by the bag at the storefront in Redby or online at Nawapo.com. 

Also worth checking out is a selection of reservation-made jellies and syrups bursting with chokecherries, highbush cranberries, or wild hawthorn.

Vampires beware: This family-run farm in Alexandria goes all in on garlic. A featured grower at the annual Minnesota Garlic Festival, they’ve built their rep on hardneck garlic (Armenian, Carpathian, Estonian Red, Russian Giant, Montana Zemo, and Georgian Fire varieties among them) and homemade garlic powders and spice blends. 

Don’t sleep on the herbaceous garlic scape powder, ground from naturally grown scapes, or the Norse Whisper seasoning, a Scandi-inspired blend of roasted garlic powder, Himalayan sea salt, and dehydrated lemon.

Minnesota has no shortage of top-shelf spirit makers — Dampfwerk Distillery, RockFilter Distillery, and Du Nord Social Spirits, to name just a few. But one of the most ubiquitous ingredients you’ll see at the state’s most ambitious cocktail bars is Sharab Shrubs, a tangy-sweet, vinegar-based cocktail mixer. 

Founded in 2016 by longtime Surdyk’s bartender Alex Zweber, the line launched with three core flavors: strawberry, apple rosemary, and Asian pear with ginger and cinnamon. It has since expanded to include plum with wildflower honey, blue poblano, raspberry, and Thai basil. 

The multi-day cold-press process involves crushing and steeping fruit, straining out the solids, and adding white or apple cider vinegar. Sharab’s website advises on which spirits pair best with which shrubs and how to incorporate them into cocktails. Some can even be used as vinaigrettes, marinades, or dipping sauces.

José and Noemi Payan have the ultimate immigrant success story. He came from Morelos and she from Puerto Rico; together they dreamt of owning their own business. But what? José spotted a gap in the Minnesota market for the kind of fresh tortillas his mom used to make back in Mexico. 

Fast-forward a quarter of a century, and the La Perla factory now produces 5-, 6-, 8-, 10-and 12-inch flour tortillas for tacos, fajitas, quesadillas, and burritos; white, yellow, and blue corn tortillas; yellow and white corn tortilla chips; and crispy tostadas. You can buy them from big-box retailers like Walmart and Cub Foods or sample them fresh in the La Perla shop at Mercado Central on Lake Street in Minneapolis.

Would you get a whiff of that? Well Rooted loose-leaf herbal teas are as fragrant as they are restorative. Founder Rachel Banken makes each batch with plants from local organic farmers (more than 80 percent come from growers within 250 miles of Minneapolis) and native herbs, roots, leaves, fruits, and berries foraged with permission from private lands. 

Her transportive combinations help you perk up and focus (sans the caffeine), soothe a cold, or simply relax. Nothing beats a steaming cup of Up North on a brisk fall morning, a Northwoods blend of pine needles, spearmint, nettles, tulsi, and a hint of maple syrup.