I’m mostly over ketchup but for those times when I must have it only Trader Joe’s Organic will do–every other kind is so fucking sweet it’s basically tomato jam and EW.
Bleu cheese dressing is awfully good for the dipping of fries when I can manage it.
I’ve never understood why people like ketchup, but that’s ok, there’s stuff I like that lots of people think is weird.
Mustard on fries if anything. At home I don’t put any sauces on burgers. Not really a fan of fast food, too sweet. I DO like horseradish sauce on a burger now and then, depending on how the burger was made
I believe anything that you would put ketchup on would be improved with either barbecue sauce or A1 instead.
THAT’S what I’ve been missing! Local pub makes the best crinkle-cut fries, flash fried so they’re really crispy but the potatoes inside are still fluffy. A huge basket for two fiddy American.
In normal times, I’m eating them while watching baseball or football games with neighbor guys. And when the barmaid puts the baskets of steaming fries down, someone always say “Digs, time to concoct the sauce”: 3 parts ketchup, 2 parts A-1 Steak Sauce, and 4 splashes of malt vinegar.
Kroger has the best fries.
Then, to the OP’s question: Contadina makes a pizza sauce that we like a lot.
Still cracks me up:
Come on. MickeyDs fries must have the little packet of ketchup. Not the giant pump machine of ketchup. I don’t trust it. No telling who put nasty crap in that or which highly paid employee washed it last.
Nope nope nope.
At home my cottage fries need nothing but a fork.
Even the Grandwrex eat them w/o ketchup.
Ketchup ruins good fries, just as it does with steak. Salt and vinegar on fries at most. If fries are really bad and need to be covered with something I’m open to other sauces, though.
ETA: I’m from MD so I love Old Bay. Bought some awhile back to make various crab dishes and decided to try some on frozen fries after coating with duck fat. That’s my favorite home/frozen fries preparation. I used to make home made fries by blanching in salt water and then drying twice and using a little malt vinegar but I don’t have the time or patience for the mess.
As far as Kroger goes, they taught me a little trick via their Private Selection coupon mailer recipe thing. Dress up frozen fries with duck fat. makes them crispier and tastier. I put them in a gallon zip lock bag and shake it before preparing as usual.
I keep a bottle of thousand island dressing in my fridge as a general condiment (plus I get back to my cultural roots). I will admit that the last time I went shopping, I bought a bottle of bacon and onion salad dressing to try it out and that’s been pretty good.
I like tartar sauce best on french fries but I hardly ever make french fries at home so there’s no point in keeping sauce around for them.
Ketchup is a convenient ready-made BBQ sauce base.
It’s also useful to add viscosity to other sauces that might be too runny on their own, like A1.
When I worked at a restaurant we kept little souffle cups of tarter sauce in the walkin and they were perfect for dipping fries. Obvious/convenient choice for fish and chips though the better “chips” go best with only vinegar IMHO.
Here’s what I use old bay for. Get a package of imitation lobster and give it a rough chop. Mix in a little mayonnaise and old bay seasoning. Pile it into a buttered toasted hard roll. It’s a poor man’s lobster roll.
Is it as good as a real lobster roll? No. But it’s pretty damn good and real lobster costs ten times as much as imitation lobster.
When my daughter was little, she didn’t like the spicy shrimp and crab cocktail I made for Thanksgiving and Christmas, so I made her a milder one with mayo, a bit of curry powder, just a dash of Tabasco, and some lime juice. She still asks for it every holiday.
It’s best with real shrimp and crab, but the imitation stuff works well too. And, as with fake lobster, it’s much cheaper.
I have no idea about the availability of this sauce, other than in Asia and Australia - where you can get it easily, but it is the greatest substance that comes in a bottle, with the possible exception of alcohol. Jimmy’s satay sauce. They call it Saté Sauce on the bottle for extra cool. Which it isn’t. It is far too fiery for most people to use straight as a dipping sauce. So great added to other things.
For fries specifically, nothing more than salt is needed, although if I’m having fish and chips, I don’t mind a bit of malt vinegar at all. For most chicken, fish and other mild dishes, hot sauce (Yellowbird, El Yucatero, and few others) is my first choice. I have a disturbing love of Fried Mozzarella with hot sauce and must fight the urge to make it as often as I’d like.
I find that for strongly flavored meats and dishes, I want something with a bit more heft, generally F&W Raspberry Chipotle Saurce, or a Garlic Hoisin sauce. I do also enjoy a good garlic stone ground mustard or spicy beer mustard on beer brats, and rarely want ketchup as well, but I make my own - mostly because every summer I get fresh tomatoes from my mother-in-law’s garden, and so I’m busy eating them, dehydrating them, making marinara, and of course ketchup.
I will grant that most industrially produced ketchup is nothing more than bland, overly sweet slop.
If fries need ketchup or anything, they aren’t worth eating in my book. Ditto for steak. I put some ketchup on my burger, but I also use Heinz Hamburger relish for the ones I do myself. Thousand Island dressing works well also.
When I lived in the Congo when I was 10 the only place in the country, as far as I knew, which had ketchup was a restaurant run by some Luxembourgers. My brother and I missed it so much we used half a bottle. So I’m fond of Heinz ketchup.
Fish and chips -> malt vinegar for both. If no malt vinegar, then tartar sauce for both.
Fries at McDonald’s / Burger King -> Their mayo
Fries in a mountain hut after 3 or 4 hours of hiking -> Thomy ketchup, which has more tomato and less sugar than Heinz. A rather intense ketchup.
Garum
Sriracha, nam chim
Genoese pesto
Mango chutney
Blue cheese, Mornay
Aïoli
Béarnaise
Scorpion flavor Tabasco
Basalmic vinegar
Wasabi
…plenty of things to try depending on the exact dish to which you’re adding it
Harissa, Hunan sauce (fermented), etc are further alternative hot sauces
Re fries, you could try mixing some Dutch mayonnaise with your ketchup, or variations on that, aka American sauce, Andalusian sauce, curry sauce, ‘nuclear war’ sauce (mayo + peanut sauce + onions + curry 
…
I love, Love, LOVE ketchup. It’s like tomato wine. I put it on almost anything. I use it as dip for potato chips. I put it on pizza.
For my brother on the other hand it’s thousand island dressing. He’s even more extreme with that than I am with ketchup. I saw him squeeze a blob of it into a bowl of chili. One time when we were kids we were out of milk and he put it on Life cereal. I wouldn’t be shocked to learn that he puts it on his wifes kooch.