Ketchup substitutes
Out of ketchup? Here are the best substitutes — what to reach for, why it works, and how much to use. Tomato paste + vinegar + sugar is the top pick.
- 01Tomato paste + vinegar + sugarbest pick
Rebuilds ketchup's sweet-tangy tomato concentrate.
1/4 cup paste + 1 tbsp each vinegar/sugar
- 02Tomato sauce reduced + sugar + vinegar
Simmer and season to ketchup consistency.
reduce, then season to taste
- 03BBQ sauce
Sweet-tangy tomato base in a pinch.
1:1
Cooking with ketchup?
Paste your recipe into Mise — we'll find every ingredient as a real product you can buy, and swap the ones you can't, like ketchup, for the closest match in stock.
Turn a recipe into a basket →How we choose these
These are tested kitchen substitutes, chosen for matching flavor, texture, and role — with ratios so the swap actually works. Taste as you go; substitutes shift intensity, not just flavor.
Flavor data: Epicure (Radzikowski & Chen, 2026), arXiv:2605.22391, CC-BY-4.0.
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