Esta salsa lleva mayonesa, ajo y un poco de pimienta.

Yes, llevar often means to carry, to take, or to wear, but in food contexts it very commonly means to contain, to have in it, or to be made with.

So:

Esta salsa lleva mayonesa, ajo y un poco de pimienta.

means something like:

• This sauce contains mayonnaise, garlic, and a little pepper.
• This sauce is made with mayonnaise, garlic, and a little pepper.

This use is very common in recipes and restaurant descriptions in Spain.

Because salsa is a feminine noun in Spanish.

• este = this for masculine singular nouns
• esta = this for feminine singular nouns

So:

• este libro = this book
• esta salsa = this sauce

The demonstrative has to agree with the noun’s gender.

Esta means this.

So esta salsa = this sauce.

It points to a specific sauce that is close in context, either physically or in the conversation. For example, someone might be talking about a sauce on the table, on a menu, or in a recipe.

In Spanish, when listing ingredients, it is very common to leave out the article.

So you often get:

• lleva mayonesa
• lleva ajo
• lleva pimienta

rather than:

• lleva la mayonesa
• lleva el ajo
• lleva la pimienta

This is similar to English ingredient lists, where we also often say It has garlic and pepper, not necessarily the garlic and the pepper.

If you added articles, it could sound more specific or less natural in a simple ingredient list.

Because un poco is followed by de before a noun.

So:

• un poco de pimienta = a little pepper
• un poco de sal = a little salt
• un poco de agua = a little water

This is a very common structure:

un poco de + noun

Without de, it would sound incorrect here.

Not necessarily. In Spanish, ingredients are often treated as mass nouns or as a general substance.

So ajo here means garlic in a general sense, not one garlic.

Compare with English:

• It has garlic
  not usually
• It has garlics

Spanish works similarly here.

Yes, you could say Esta salsa tiene mayonesa, ajo y un poco de pimienta, and it would be understood.

But there is a small nuance:

• tiene = has
• lleva = contains / is made with / comes with

In cooking and food descriptions, lleva often sounds more natural and more idiomatic, especially in Spain.

So both are possible, but lleva is very common for ingredients.

In this sentence, pimienta normally means pepper as a seasoning, like black pepper, white pepper, etc., not chili pepper.

In Spanish:

• pimienta = pepper spice
• guindilla, chile, pimiento picante, etc. = chili pepper, depending on region

So here the most natural interpretation is a little pepper as a seasoning.

Because y means and, and Spanish uses it in lists just like English:

• mayonesa, ajo y un poco de pimienta
• mayonnaise, garlic, and a little pepper

Spanish normally uses y before the final item in a list.

One useful extra point: y changes to e before words that begin with an i sound:

• padre e hijo = father and son

But here it stays y because un poco de pimienta does not begin with an i sound.

Yes. Lleva is the third person singular form of llevar in the present tense.

The subject is esta salsa, which is grammatically it:

• esta salsa lleva... = this sauce contains...

So the verb form matches a singular subject.

A little, yes, but the given order is the most neutral and natural.

Standard order:

Esta salsa lleva mayonesa, ajo y un poco de pimienta.

You could rearrange the ingredients:

Esta salsa lleva ajo, mayonesa y un poco de pimienta.

That would still be correct; it just changes the order of emphasis slightly.

But moving lleva or esta salsa around would usually sound less natural in a basic statement.

A rough Spain Spanish pronunciation would be:

EH-sta SAHL-sa YEH-va ma-yo-NE-sa, A-ho ee oon PO-ko de pee-mee-EN-ta

A few key points:

• ll in lleva is usually pronounced like y in much of Spain
• j in ajo is a strong throaty sound, not like English j
• h is silent in Spanish, but there is no h here anyway
• vowels are usually clear and short

The hardest word for many English speakers is ajo, because of the j sound.