Two summers ago I had a humongous crop of beautiful Italian (paste) tomatoes that just wouldn't stop producing.  After making tons of plain sauce, tomato juice, pasta sauce, ketchup, double red tomato soup (tomato and roasted red sweet peppers) and salsa, I decided to make chili sauce using two different recipes, not thinking that all I have ever used the Heinz version for is meatballs. 

Because my experience with cooked tomato recipes like these taste fresher frozen rather than canned, I filled my freezer up with all these tomato products.   I cleaned my freezer out yesterday and realized that I still have most of those jars of chili sauce taking up my best 12 oz. jelly jars and too much freezer space. 

It would be a waste to throw it out, but at the price of meat, it would be a bigger waste to make up something that just didn't taste good in the end.  I searched the Internet but came up with little besides meatballs and using it as a condiment or to make cocktail sauce. 

I would be eternally grateful for any tried & true recipes or suggestions out there to use it up. 

Mmmmmmmmm  that sounds good!  I've got all that on hand, and I can make a really small batch to try it out, so I'll give it a try right now. 

mamajhk said:

It is good.  It is 8 oz cream cheese, 1 10.5 oz can of no bean chili (an larger size overwhelms the dip) and shredded cheddar cheese. Corn chips such as scoops work the best for dipping. I don't know why subsitutions couldn't be made.

In fact in my family it is known as Alyson's (youngest granddaughter) favorite dip.  When she was about 2 years old I had made it and served it on the coffee table.  Later, as we went about our activites we realized that Alyson was very quiet which was/is unusual for her and we knew she was up to something.  Well, we found her under the coffee table happily dipping her fingers into the leftover dip.  She had consumed quite a bit of it. 

This is chili sauce I am talking about.  Like the Heinz Chili Sauce, that you use with grape jelly to make party meatballs.  Like a spiced up sweet/tangy ketchup or cocktail sauce without the horseradish.  I realized that Ross was thinking about chili like with hamburger and beans after I thought about melting cheese on top.  I did put some chili sauce on warm cream cheese and scooped it up with tortilla chips, but it was only fair. 

 

I am making roast pork for dinner, so I am thinking about mixing in some apricot jam to make a sweet & sour sauce.  I've got 10 jars of this stuff to use up.  I tasted it and it is really good, just not too many uses for it in cooking.