Assuming we are talking about the recipe in the Ball Complete Book p. 264 - Chili Sauce. We need that info as there is more than 1 Ball book and several Chili Sauce recipes.

You can sub cider vinegar for white in any recipe with no issues. The celery is another matter as it is more low-acid than onions. While it is a straight vinegar recipe so it may be a safe substitution there is just no way to know for sure. Your choice.

If I was going to do it I would be very conservative with the celery and would reduce both the onions and the peppers. There are 3 cups peppers in this recipe so plenty of room to reduce them. JMO

You can always use more celery seeds or use dehydrated celery flakes - available in the spices section of the store.

Dave

Thank you, Dave. This is the recipe I was looking at, from their website. I am hoping Santa will bring me the book this year for Christmas.

Here is a link that might be useful: Grandma's chili sauce

Ahh a very different recipe. Still the switch to cider vinegar is no problem as long as you stick with 5%.

Still best to go with dehydrated celery and I'd use celery seed rather than celery salt. But as i said above if you want to leave out a couple of onions or an onion and a pepper and add a couple stalks of chopped celery instead it would probably be ok but there just is no way to know for sure.

I'd be comfortable with it because of all the vinegar but others wouldn't so it boils down to your choice. You could always add some lemon juice or citric acid to cover the change.

As a general rule we can sub like for like (ie: one kind of pepper for another kind) but aren't supposed to sub different vegetables with different pH.

Dave

I make a slightly adapted version of Grandma's Chili Sauce. I re-read your original question and noticed you want something like Heinz chili sauce to use in your Thousand Island Dressing. Grandma's isn't "ketchupy" like Heinz chili sauce. It's excellent, but we use it instead of buying "Manwich" and as topping for meatloaf or on meat pies. You might try pureeing a jar after you open it, thicken it a bit and use it. I'll have to try that myself.

I'm tired of buying Heinz chili sauce (I use it instead of ketchup and I go through a lot at $2+ a bottle :-( so what I'm going to try is use the Ball Taco Sauce recipe (linked below) and change the spices to attempt to match the Heinz flavor. It starts with canned tomato paste, vinegar and corn syrup - which are the first three ingredients on my bottle of commercial chili sauce. Since it doesn't depend on fresh tomatoes, I'll experiment this winter with different spice combinations to see what I can come up with.

Here is a link that might be useful: Taco Sauce

That taco sauce sounds closer to Heinz 57 than it does to the chili sauce I am thinking of. But, it also sounds good so please report on any success you have with it.