Tomato Ketchup Recipe (2024)

2/3 cup of sugar?? Why not a tablespoon of honey if you want something sweet? Or better yet, nothing extra added for sweetness. The tomatoes themselves should be kept as pure as possible - roasting will bring out more of their flavors. Worcestershire sauce is also an adulterated product. You could put in your own curry or cumino flavor and some roasted tomatillos for an interesting southwest mix that goes especially well with meat.

This recipe is deliberately kept simple. But, if you have these spices on hand, I recommend a half tsp of ground cloves, and a tsp each of coriander and white pepper. A bit of added depth helps, if you're using ketchup mostly for burgers and fries.

As somebody who could drink ketchup from a bottle, I love this recipe. I did not have any red wine vinegar so I used balsamic (cutting the vinegar amount in half). I also added some of the spices (coriander, curry, cloves) recommended by other readers. A large skillet to cook the tomatoes worked well. Half of the recipe gave me one and a half cups of ketchup. Looking forward to enjoying this with home made fries.

Oh no, this is so much better than store bought. My mother always made ketchup when I was a child and it's one of my favorite childhood memories.

This makes wonderful ketchup, but is totally off base in estimating 20 to 25 minutes cooking time for the tomatoes. I admit I doubled the recipe (who wouldn't?), but the cooking time for the tomatoes is still at least 1.5 hours.) Still, it's well worth it.

Don't know if you'll see this, but my mom taught me that a pint's a pound the world around! :)

my 8 year old daughter has renal failure; tomatoes, sugars & sodium is harmful to her kidneys, BUT SHE LOVES KETCHUP! So I used our home grown low acid orange and yellow tomatoes instead. I saw that a few of you were having to substitute for the high acid of the tomatoes with the sugar and vinegar. I used 1 cup of balsamic vinegar, just 1 teaspoon of pink Himalayan salt and 1/4 cup of light brown sugar then used the coriander instead of the Worcestershire to cut back on more sodium.

I love this recipe. The only thing additional that I add is a touch of smoke, which can be done in a number of ways. I bought a fancy smoke gun, that looks like a super duper bong, but it lends a subtle smokiness of wood or tea leaves to the ketchup. Another way is to cook the tomatoes on a wood chipped grill, then proceed with this recipe, or just add a couple of drops of good old liquid smoke. These things make all the difference from very good to wow!

It's at least a month in the fridge and probably longer I would guess. We usually eat it up within a month.

Got here from chicken with ketchup recipe and I definitely plan to make this. Just wanted to comment that off those of you who wonder about the shelf life, this recipe has both acid (vinegar) and sugar which definitely improve microbiological stability. I plan however to do a hot water canning with half pint jars so I can make a larger batch and keep it longer (I live alone and don't use that much ketchup). I'll process for 15 minutes.

i have to agree with daniel shulman, the ketchup is wonderful, but the simmering time is way off. i simmered it for close to 1.5 hours using 3 lbs plum tomatoes, which was a half lb more than 2 qts grape tomatoes, otherwise all the same measurements and i could have simmered it still a bit more if i wanted a thicker consistency. Still DELISH! trying it with Mark Bittman's Stir-Fried Chicken with Ketchup tonight.

try adding curry to it. Oh my!

OMG can u just tell me how many pounds of tomatoes?!?

This is excellent and easy to play with. I generally hate ketchup but I really loved this recipe. I made homemade barbeque sauce with this. I don't really use sugar so I used Mike's Hot Honey. Delicious.

This is the second time I have made this. The first time was sublime, I followed the recipe, except I used honey instead of sugar (we don't keep or use sugar). This time it's even better! I added Ramen Garlic Pepper and Hot Curry spices from Spice House. This is so awesome to think we could have different ketchup every month! This is so much better than store bought. I thought I didn't like ketchup but now I know better.

It is rare that a recipe on this site doesnt work out at all but this was one of them. I agree from the notes, that 25 minutes of cooking time is maybe 1/3 the actual amount of time required. After 25 minutes, there was still a lot of liquid in the pan and it didnt look like jam. The vinegar overpowered the final result and I agree with the notes that suggest halving the vinegar on the first try.

Fantastic and easy. I’d lower the sugar a bit. I added 10 cloves of garlic, some chipotle in adobo and some curry powder. Dayum.

I have been making this for years with San Marzano Roma tomatoes when I am lucky enough to find them at a farm market. I usually quadruple the recipe and preserve the ketchup with my canning equipment, makes enough for us for a year and occasional gifts. I follow the recipe exactly, turns out perfectly.

The vinegar taste is overpowering.

Five stars for this one! The results from this recipe are really good. I made half the recipe since I didn't need so much. I did not sieve the mixture after cooking and pureeing, what for? It is plenty smooth with pureeing. I forgot to add the Worcestershire sauce entirely, but I thought it tasted just fine and so did my dinner guests. I did add a dash of cloves and coriander though. Put this ketchup on black bean burgers and your guests will ask for more!

Allspice is less heavy than cloves here.

The long cooking for ketchup is to reduce the large amount of water in the fruit.After cutting the tomatoes in half leave them in a bowl in the fridge for a day. The water will rise to the top. This should be reduced in a separate pan until it Has an intense color and is the consistency of thin ketchup. This can then go in with everything else and carry on with the recipe. You will be rewarded with more tomato taste and brighter flavors from the seasoning.

SimplyHeinz and Organic Heinz have no corn syrup. They are very good and no work.

I used a good Italian red wine vinegar in the recommended proportions, and found the vinegar to be overpowering. If I do it again I will use at most half the recommended amount.

An afterthought. "Chill before serving" ought to have been a warning. We don't taste cold food as completely as warm or room temperature food. My Heinz ketchup tastes fine at room temperature. But Melissa is right; this one needs to be chilled before serving. A few co*cktails before tasting would also help.

I've made this ketchup with half the salt and sugar, and substituted cider vinegar for the wine vinegar. We really prefer the changes. Works well with canned roma tomatoes in the winter. The ketchup keeps well in the refrigerator up to 4 months.

Would it make sense to blend like crazy in the vitamix and forgo straining?

I used 3 lb of homegrown “Fox Cherry” variety tomatoes, which are about the size of Campari tomatoes. Only 1 cup of vinegar, and it was still on the edge of being too vinegary. Took way longer than 25 minutes to become jammy...a lot more liquid than cherry tomatoes. Turned out well but a little too sweet. Next time I’ll use 1/2C sugar instead fo 2/3.