Canning: Sweet Chili Sauce

All-natural Sweet Chili Sauce

This is NOT the Thai-style Sweet Chili Sauce (which I tried before and did not like).  Last year, when I had tons of tomatoes from my garden, and I had lots of tomato juice (this is the juice I get if I try to remove the seeds first before processing the rest of the tomatoes to make tomato sauce), I got curious is I could use that tomato juice in combination with the leftover bread and butter pickle brine to come up with my own version of UFC Sweet Chili Sauce, which my family (including my picky husband!) loves on fish sticks and chicken fingers. Of course, my sons and I love to use it also on lumpia shanghai. I strained the BBPickle brine to remove the mustard seeds, then experimented with combinations and other spices until I was satisfied. To my surprise, hubby even loved it better than the UFC Sweet Chili Sauce, but I did not make notes of how I actually made my version. So this year, I tried to recreate. I had hubby taste it, although at this point the flavor is not yet fully develop  -- vinegary still, and very mildly hot. But we know that with time, the vinegar flavor will mellow down, and the hot pepper flakes will make this hotter. So, with hubby's approval, I finalized my recipe. We will try to check in two weeks whether the pepper flakes have finally made this hotter (hopefully not too much). If still mild, I can easily reheat the whole batch and add more red pepper flakes, then process again.

Before going to my recipe, I would like to present here the ingredients of UFC Sweet Chili Sauce:

The Ingredients of Sweet Chili Sauce

That should settle down the question some of you might ask as to "Why bother making your own?"

So after showing you those ingredients, here are mine:

Ingredients:
6 cups tomato juice
6 cups vinegar
10 cups white sugar
6 tsp turmeric powder
6 tbsp minced onion (dried)
3 tbsp minced garlic (dried)
1 tbsp salt
3 tbsp soy sauce
6 tbsp tapioca flour
3 tbsp red pepper flakes (might need more later; will check in two weeks if it is hot enough)

Instructions:

For the tomato juice, please read above.

Sterilize jars.  Keep lids and bands in hot water until ready to use.

Mix together the tomato juice and vinegar. Scoop out 1/2 cup to use to dissolve the tapioca flour (set this aside).

Add to the mixture the rest of the ingredients. Boil.  While stirring, add the dissolved tapioca slowly.

Ladle immediately into hot jars. Wipe rims, adjust lids and bands.  Process for 10 minutes in boiling water batch canner or steamer canner (I use steamer canner to sterilize and process these).

Makes 9 pints.

This is how the two compare in looks:

A comparison

But the best comparison is in the ingredients.  Agree? If you think the ingredients are better, wait til you taste it.