Substitute for Thousand Island Dressing

I'm making an old family recipe (one the kids liked) tonight - Chicken Reuben - and it has sauerkraut, Swiss Cheese and Thousand Island Dressing. I want to stay away from commercial dressing, and don't want a mayonnaise based home made dressing either. How can I simulate the same taste or at least something close. I thought of Heinz Chili Sauce maybe with chopped pickles, but it might be overpowering. Any suggestions?

[Jenise]

Why not just use sweet pickle relish? Leave out the fat, keep the sweet and the tang.

Would picklelilly work?

Would picklelilly work?

I've never heard of this...looked it up and it sounds delish. Sounds like it would work on Polish Kraut Dogs, as well.

I used Jenise's suggestion for the sweet pickle relish as it is what I had on hand. I brightened the relish with some finely chopped onion and lemon zest. It smells wonderful. My dish is put together and ready for the oven. I'm sure it will be yummy. We love sauerkraut, and it bakes right with the chicken, and dressing. At the end, the Swiss Cheese is added and baked uncovered until it melts all over the sauerkraut. The kids always loved the smell of the dish as it was baking. I'm practicing up on some dishes as we are having two grandkids for a week soon. Going to love it!

From what my Mother taught me, ketchup + mayo = Russian dressing. Add relish and it's Thousand Island. If you want to avoid using mayo, I'd suggest using sour cream or unflavored yogurt.

Great suggestion, and I will do that next time. This dish was very good, and healthy as made, but it lacked the smoothness of the Thousand Island Dressing. I never even gave a thought to using nonfat sour cream or yogurt.

I recall that the original 1000 island dressing also included hard boiled egg.

Here is the original for all who are interested. This was from Filene's in Boston (now closed), devised on one one of the "thousand islands" in the St Lawrence River in Canada. The beets are probably the missing link...
fold together:
one cup mayo
2 tbsp chili sauce
1 tbsp finely chopped white onions
1 tbsp finely chopped cooked beets
1 tbsp chopped hard boiled egg
1 tbsp finely chopped chives
1 tbsp finely chopped pimentos
1 tbsp finely chopped flat leaved parsley
1/2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
season with salt and freshly ground pepper