No-Sugar Cocktail Sauce goes nicely with shrimp, crab and other chilled seafood.
Commercial seafood cocktail sauce contains both refined sugar and corn syrup. Who needs it? This no-sugar cocktail sauce gets all its sweetness from the concentrated umami of the tomato paste. As a bonus, you can stop before adding the last four ingredients and you’ll have no-sugar ketchup. Makes about 1 1/2 cup.
Ingredients:
6 oz can tomato paste
2 T lemon juice
1 t garlic powder
1/2 t allspice OR 1/4 t ground cloves, a bit of grated nutmeg and a pinch of cinnamon*
1/4 to 1/2 c water (save this till the end and mix in gradually to desired consistency)
To turn ketchup into no-sugar cocktail sauce:
3 T lemon juice
3/4 t Tabasco
2 T prepared horseradish
1 T Worcestershire sauce
Method: Mix the first five ingredients to make no-sugar ketchup, or all eight for no-sugar cocktail sauce. (For the latter, you’ll be adding a total of 5 T lemon juice.) We’ve tried to replicate the flavor of commercial cocktail sauce, but feel free to taste as you go and adjust amounts to your preference. Mix in the water at the end so you can get the consistency you want…. initially it will be quite a bit thicker than commercial sauce.
*These “warm” spices are part of the flavor profile of ketchup, but the effect is subtle and you can leave them out if making cocktail sauce, because they’ll be overpowered by the horseradish and Worcestershire.
