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Every table's got them — ketchup, brown sauce, sweet chilli, salad cream. We treat them as an afterthought, a squeeze on the side. But some of these bottles carry more sugar per spoonful than the food they're sitting next to. We read the labels, converted grams into teaspoons, and ranked six of Britain's best-known sauces from worst to best. Let's go.
A typical sweet chilli sauce runs around 50 grams of sugar per 100 grams — that's half sugar syrup by weight. A single tablespoon squeeze, the kind you'd pour over spring rolls or a wrap, works out at around 7 and a half grams, close to two teaspoons. It tastes like a savoury dip. The label says otherwise.
A typical BBQ sauce sits around 28 grams of sugar per 100 grams. One tablespoon serving comes to roughly 4 grams — just over a teaspoon. It's the sticky sweetness that makes it work on ribs and burgers, but that's sugar doing the heavy lifting, not just smoke and spice.
A typical brown sauce carries around 24 grams of sugar per 100 grams. A tablespoon works out at roughly 3 and a half grams — just under a teaspoon. Fine sitting alongside your fry-up now and then, it's the sauce most people wrongly assume is the healthier, savoury option.
Classic tomato ketchup runs around 23 grams of sugar per 100 grams. A tablespoon squeeze comes to roughly 3 and a half grams — just under a teaspoon. It's the one everyone blames first, and it does add up if you're generous with it, but ounce for ounce it's not actually the worst bottle on this table.
A typical salad cream comes in at around 10 grams of sugar per 100 grams — less than half of ketchup. A tablespoon serving works out at roughly 1 and a half grams, well under half a teaspoon. Tangier, sharper, and lighter on the sugar than most people assume.
A typical real mayonnaise carries only around 3 grams of sugar per 100 grams. A tablespoon serving comes to less than half a gram — a fraction of a teaspoon. It's rich in fat, not sugar, and on this particular measure, it's the cleanest bottle on the shelf.
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