Another day, another recipe to replace a bottle of condiments in the refrigerator door with something healthier, from items you can keep on-hand. Ho-hum.
As you will recall from my Cocktail Sauce post, I like to have the right condiment for every occasion, but I hate the thought of a dozen or more glass bottles languishing in the refrigerator for a year or more (um, much more sometimes).
I checked out the ingredients in Heinz Chili Sauce at the grocery store today, and I admit, it wasn’t as bad of an offender as packaged onion soup mix (discussed here), save for corn syrup that seems a bit extraneous – but can anyone explain “natural flavoring” to me? How about just using … natural flavors?
I know. I’m a bit of a visionary.
Those natural flavors look pretty good to me!
I also like that I can use organic tomato sauce and organic tomato paste to make this recipe – I admittedly haven’t looked very hard, but I have not seen organic chili sauce at my local grocery stores, and tomatoes are one ingredient for which I like to at least try to use organic when I can.
My first experience with chili sauce was for a cranberry brisket recipe, and I remember being so confused. Wouldn’t a whole 12 oz. jar of “chili sauce” be SO SPICY?
Negative. This type of “chili sauce” is sweet, like a sweet marinara – as you can see in the ingredient list, it’s pretty much a fancy tomato sauce.
Chili sauce, in my experience, is usually used as a sauce ingredient in recipes like meatloaf, brisket, and meatballs. But when I was prepping to take pictures of the Garlic – Parmesan Soft Pretzel Knots, I was looking for a dipping sauce for the photos – and I thought this would pass muster. But as I took pictures, snacking as I went {hey, there are many benefits to food blogging!}, I realized that this Homemade Chili Sauce would be a great, easy dipping sauce for garlicky bread. I would probably only use 1 T of sweetener (brown sugar or honey) when using this recipe to make a dipping sauce, but I am thrilled to find another way to eat garlicky bread and tomato sauce. YUM. I was totally looking for another way to eat garlicky bread and tomato sauce.
- 8 oz tomato sauce
- 2 T tomato paste
- lemon juice from ½ lemon
- 1 T light brown sugar
- 1 T honey
- ¼ t mustard powder
- ¼ t onion powder
- ¼ t garlic powder
- ¼ t chili powder
- ¼ t Worcestershire sauce
- Mix all ingredients together in a small bowl. Let stand in the refrigerator before use, if you have time {but it will still be great if you don't}.
Adapted from: http://www.deepsouthdish.com/2013/05/homemade-chili-sauce.html#axzz3HvZfF2A6
Why use ANY sugar? What happens when you leave out the sugar? Thanks 😊
It’s less sweet? 😉
Just kidding. I haven’t made this one in a while, but because chili sauce is supposed to be sweet, it does need a sweetener. If you leave it out, it’s just a different tomato sauce. Not bad, just not the same taste as from the bottle. You know how every spaghetti sauce tastes a little different? Kind of like that…