Out of ketchup
Ketchup for cooking from tomato sauce, sugar and vinegar
Updated
Both charts that give an amount for ketchup rebuild it from tomato sauce, sugar and vinegar. They agree on the tomato sauce and the vinegar and part ways on the sugar: which kind, and how much.
Illinois prints the same mix as Colorado State under a ketchup heading, but it does not say how much ketchup the mix stands in for, so it is not counted as a source on the card.
Sources disagree · replaces 1 cup ketchup, for cooking
Tomato sauce + sugar + vinegar
The charts below do not print the same thing for 1 cup of ketchup, for cooking. We show each one as printed instead of averaging them.
Colorado State Extension — granulated sugar
| Amount | Ingredient | ≈ grams |
|---|---|---|
| 1 cup | tomato sauce | 245 g |
| ½ cup | granulated sugar | 100 g |
| 2 tbsp | vinegar |
- Colorado State University Extension, Ingredient Substitutions (web page) — verified 2026-09-27
Mississippi State Extension — brown sugar
| Amount | Ingredient | ≈ grams |
|---|---|---|
| 1 cup | tomato sauce | 245 g |
| ¼ cup | brown sugar (packing not stated) | |
| 2 tbsp | vinegar |
- Mississippi State University Extension, Ingredient Substitutions and Equivalents (Publication 1690, 2024), p. 4 — verified 2026-09-27
Grams are volume-to-weight estimates from USDA FoodData Central (SR Legacy): Tomato products, canned, sauce — 1 cup = 245 g; Sugars, granulated — 1 cup = 200 g. Blank means the chart does not say which kind to use, or the unit is not a volume.
Before you swap
- Both charts mark the swap “for use in cooking”. Neither offers it as a ketchup for the table.
- Mississippi State’s version is the base of its chili sauce swap without the spices. Chili sauce has its own page.
How these ratios are checked: our method. Spotted a mismatch with a chart? Tell us and we will recheck the original.