Ketchup is an additive with 45 known flavor compounds. Ketchup appears in 4,577 recipes, most commonly in creole cuisine. Ketchup has no compounds unique to it in our source data — its profile is made up entirely of volatiles common across many foods, so we don't report a signature molecule or a top pairing for it.
Compounds ranked by rarity — the higher the score, the more distinctive to this ingredient.
Of the ~226 molecules that drive perceived food aroma (Dunkel et al. 2014), Ketchup's inventory contains 4. Most of the other 41 compounds are below detection threshold.
Generalist = appears in >25% of foods (Maillard / fermentation products). Individualist = appears in <5% of foods (carries signature notes). Threshold values are in clean water — the actual perception threshold in a food matrix can differ substantially.
How Ketchup's 45 known compounds break down by aroma category. Percentages are of compounds with a known label.
No chemistry specific to ketchup has been recorded. Every compound below appears in more than 10% of the foods in the graph — these are the vitamins, amino acids and common fatty acids nearly everything carries, not this ingredient’s aroma profile. Treat pairings involving it as unsupported until it is characterised.
Ordered by measured impact in ketchup — concentration against odour threshold where both are published, then by how distinctive the molecule is across the graph. Molecules measured here but not established as odorants sit below those that are.
Ranked by how often cooks actually use them together, across 453,403 recipes — the familiar answer first. Each pairing still carries its molecular score and shared-compound count; only the ORDER differs. Counts cover every characterised molecule the two ingredients have in common, not only the aroma-active ones, so they can exceed an ingredient’s aroma-compound count. For the chemistry-first view — where the surprising pairings live — see the molecular network below, the side-by-side comparison, or the Pairing Tool.
Limited data for this ingredient
Our sources don't yet contain a dedicated aroma analysis for ketchup. Its profile is built entirely from volatiles that are common across many foods, with none specific to it — so the ranking below reflects that shared background, not a distinct molecular match. Treat it as a placeholder until we have GC‑MS coverage for this ingredient.
Ketchup and its 10 closest compound-sharing relatives. Spoke thickness = shared compounds; circle size = that ingredient's own compound count. Drag to rearrange, scroll to zoom, click to open.
Compare Ketchup side-by-side
Drawn from PubMed + Europe PMC + food-science journals. Click any title to read the full abstract on the original source.
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