Nightshade-Free Ketchup

I would suggest a watermelon based ketchup. It has that lovely lycopene that gives tomatoes their brilliant colour, while having the sweetness needed so you don't need to add any other sweetness at all. You'll just need some vinegar and some spices. Watermelon tastes rather similar to cucumber once you get past the sweetness so if you're already thriving on cucumber salsas, this might be just the thing for you. Just keep in mind, the recipes I've seen for watermelon ketchup all forget salt- you'll definitely want some salt. I'd bet mixing in a bit of squash to the typical recipe might be worth trying as well, squash adds a richness and should tip the scales to a more red-red than the slightly pink hue of watermelon.

Beau Davidson wrote:I

But I haven't yet found something that I like as well as kethcup on certain things.

We really like this recipe

https://www.healthycanning.com/cranberry-ketchup/

Great on everything tradiional we've used it on + smoked turkey, portobello mushroom sandwiches.

Also: Sweet Cherry Ketchup
https://foodinjars.com/recipe/sweet-cherry-ketchup/

Also very tasty.

Ketchup is one of the very good uses I have found for the small red and very sour crabapples that my family has been picking for friends the past few years (mostly to help them deter the black bears from hanging out in their yard and breaking the tree branches).  

The road to making ketchup with crabapples began the year our family was avoiding nightshades (among many other things) because of my son's severe sleep apnea caused by food sensitivities.  One day, I happened across a meatloaf recipe that had a sauce on top made with applesauce and some spices.  I used some of the crabapple sauce I had put away that year, mostly to use it up, since we didn't really enjoy eating it without adding a lot of honey to it (especially since we had much better sauce made from sweeter apples).  We liked the meatloaf and found that it reminded us of BBQ sauce, so I used the recipe a number of times to make sauces for various dishes.  After a while, I began using a BBQ sauce recipe, and simply substituting the sour crabapple sauce for tomato sauce, and keeping it in the fridge for my kids to put on things they would normally use ketchup on.

Eventually, my daughter's begging for me to buy ketchup led me to experiment with making crabapple ketchup.  The first one I tried that she loved was a "raw" recipe that called for a 5oz. can of tomato paste whisked together with 2/3c cider vinegar, 1/3c water, 3 tbsp honey, 3 tbsp minced onion, 2 garlic cloves, 1 tsp salt, and allspice, cloves, and pepper (1/8tsp of each).  I simply used a jar of my crabapple sauce (which is about the consistency of tomato paste) and mixed it up quickly before a meal on which I knew she would like to have ketchup... and she LOVED it... said it tasted just like ketchup!  Apparently the spice combination was the right one.

Anyway, from there, I modified and adjusted here and there, began cooking it to preserve in jars, etc.  This is the recipe that I have used the past 2 years to preserve for winter:  10c crabapple sauce, 4-1/2c apple cider vinegar, 2c honey, 1/2c onion powder/granules, 3tbsp garlic powder/granules, 2tbsp salt, 1tsp cloves, 1tsp pepper, 1/2tsp allspice.  I boil it until thickened to ketchup consistency and then seal in sterilized pint jars.  This year, I made a small batch of ketchup with tomato paste, just to compare... there is definitely a difference, but my daughter loves both equally well!

I hope this helps someone... I saw this thread today and had to share my story!