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Sauce

Sugar-free Chili Sauce

A sauce made from tomatoes, peppers, onions, spices, vinegar, and artificial sweetener, simmered until thick.

From the Recipes Wiki (Fandom) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 14,189 recipes mention both. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Sugar-free Chili Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the sauce

  1. Combine all ingredients in a large sauce pot.

  2. Bring to a simmer.

  3. Cook for 3 to 4 hours, stirring occasionally.

Jar and process

  1. When the mixture reaches the desired thickness, pour hot into hot jars, leaving ¼ inch head space, then adjust caps.

  2. Process 15 minutes in a boiling water bath.

Recipe from the Recipes Wiki (Fandom).

This recipe comes from the Recipes Wiki on Fandom and is licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Our formatting and summaries are shared under the same licence.

Steps grouped into stages for easier reading; the method is the source's own.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together17,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together20,633 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Pepper + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together4,890 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Form the bulk of the sauce and provide most of its moisture and body as they cook down.
Onions
Add savoury depth and soft texture that break down during the long simmer.
Green peppers
Contribute fresh, slightly bitter flavour and texture to the cooked sauce.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and helps preserve the sauce for canning.
Liquid artificial sweetener
Provides sweetness in place of sugar, balancing the acidity of the vinegar and tomatoes.
Cinnamon
Adds warm aromatic flavour that defines the sauce's character.

The step that matters

Cooking to the desired thickness. Thickening happens only as water evaporates during the long simmer, so the sauce must be stirred often to keep it from scorching on the bottom of the pot. Judge thickness by how it coats a spoon, not by time alone.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, pepper, cinnamon, clove, vinegar):

  1. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  2. Carrotbetter flavor fit
  3. Eggplantbetter flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, pepper, cinnamon, clove, vinegar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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