When I moved into my first apartment in Chicago after college, I rented a ‘junior studio’ one block from Lake Michigan. My 400-square-foot prison cell had views of a back alley and a layout which allowed me to stand in 3 rooms simultaneously. Upon seeing the size of the refrigerator, I was convinced the building supervisor had played a cruel joke on me. It looked custom built for Lilliputians. Besides my Brita filter and an occasional bag of apples, I couldn’t fit much more into it.
I got used to having an anemic, sparsely filled refrigerator, even as I moved to larger apartments fitted with normal, human-sized ones that could accommodate many more items. This all changed when the chest-pounding, ooga-ooga, love of my life, moved in with his worldly possessions in tow. Overnight, my scanty refrigerator was suddenly packed with a rainbow assortment of jars and bottles filled with condiments I never even knew existed.
One of his most cherished bottles contained what he calls ‘red sauce’, or more commonly known to anyone outside of Ireland as ketchup. Given the eerie, unnatural brightness and shelf life capacity of the stuff from the Heinz family, I felt compelled to concoct my own for him. And boy, oh boy, I’m so glad I did. After making this homemade ketchup, you’ll never buy another bottle of Heinz again (plus, it’ll fit much easier in your refrigerator).
HOMEMADE KETCHUP
Adapted from Saveur, yields about 2 cups
The best part of making your own homemade ketchup is that you can tweak it to your heart’s content – spicier, sweeter, thicker, saltier – the possibilities are endless and those summer backyard bbq’s will be taken to new heights. Oh, and don’t forget the homemade mustard!
Ingredients
- 4 whole cloves
- 1 bay leaf
- 1 stick cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp celery seeds
- 1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
- 1/4 tsp whole allspice
- 2 pounds tomatoes, roughly chopped
- 1 1/2 tsp kosher salt
- 1/2 cup white vinegar
- 5 tbsp brown sugar
- 1 onion, chopped
- 1 anaheim chile, chopped
- 1 clove garlic
Method
Wrap cloves, bay leaf, cinnamon, celery seeds, red pepper flakes, and allspice in a layer of cheesecloth; tie into a bundle and put into a 4-qt. saucepan over medium-high heat along with tomatoes, salt, vinegar, sugar, onion, and chile; smash and add the garlic. Cook, stirring, until onions and chiles are very soft, 40 minutes.
Remove spice bundle; purée sauce in a blender until smooth. Strain sauce through a mesh strainer into a 4-qt. saucepan over medium heat. Cook, stirring occasionally, until thickened, 30 minutes. Add more salt, sugar, or vinegar, if you like.
Transfer ketchup to a glass jar. Set aside; let cool. Cover with a tight-fitting lid and refrigerate for up to 3 weeks.
I will definitely try this, I’m also very suspicious of the industrial ketchup… looks unnatural. By the way, beautiful pics!
Homemade is the best – and yours looks delicious!
That sauce sounds exceptional. I love Saveur magazine.
Looks great!
Yummy…
I’m not big on ketchup… but I enjoyed this post still, must have to do with your way with words that’s engaging.
That looks beautiful! I don’t like additives or preservatives or other nasties like high fructose corn syrup in my food, so this is perfect. Thanks so much for sharing this!
What a great recipe! I am definitely going to try this.
Nice! This looks great- I will have to give this a try for sure! By the way, I love your “music pairings” with your recipes. Such a cute idea!
Homemade ketchup? Count me in!
now thats what I call a sauce, he he he’s from Ireland I am from the UK and I get it ask him about Branson Pickle and HP sauce !! oh and Heinz salad cream
now that you mention it, he has asked me to make Branson Pickle to go with his favorite cheese. he loves that stuff and goes on about it all the time!
I really enjoyed reading about how to make your own ketchup! very helpful too :)
love to make home made ketchups.. looks awesome!! m sure gonna try this out.. thanx for sharing :)
A recipe to save until the tomatoes are ripe. MMMMMmmmm
My panel of kids will tell me the truth. ;) I think I will try this on them and poor it in the heinz ketchup bottle to see if they notice. hmmmm….
sneaky! i love it! :) lemme know the results.
The recipe sounds great! I’ve always wanted to try making ketchup since I eat so much of it.
I love the idea of making your own condiments. I’ll definitely have to try this recipe! Sounds delicious.
Plus, I like the idea of being a bit adventurous with it. Spicier ketchup? Great idea!
Great picture! Making ketchup and pickles are on the list of things to do very soon, though not together. :) Thanks for sharing the recipe.
Thank you so much! We all needed this…really such a good idea. best, s
How wonderful, homemade ketchup looks about a million times better – tastier and healthier – then store bought!
Nothing like Heinz, as this one is much MUCH better, way to go and thks 4 sharing :) xx Rico|Recipes xx
This is a great recipe! I can’t wait to try this out!
Thank you very much for sharing. I’m gonna make my own homemade ketchup soon. Your blog is awesome! ^^
hi kennyt – thank you! i’m glad you are enjoying it. please let me know how the ketchup turns out for you.
Wow your pic tempts me to make my own ketchup. This stands out incomparable to anything in the market now!!
I’ve never made ketchup before and I just made this ketchup and it is delicious!!! I had to make some substitutions though since I didn’t have all the ingredients on hand when I started. Instead of an onion I used onion flakes 1tbsp, no Anaheim Chile, 1/2 tsp garlic puree something that is liquidy and kept in the fridge it says it is equivalent to 1 garlic clove. Instead of red pepper flakes I used the seeds from our dried whole red peppers. I just guessed on the amount less than a 1/4 tsp.
One question: what kind of mesh strainer do you use it took me forever say 30 min to get my smooth ketchup through the strainer after I blended it. I had to push it through.
Thanks for the recipe!!!
Incredibly curious about this, I love cooking and eating.
LOL.. I think the part that stands out most in this post is your description of your hubby. Made me laugh, really. With married life and a new hulk in the house comes many wonderful changes, experiences and interesting ideas, don’t you think? My own hulk has requested some favourites that I think I ought to get making very soon :-)
ooOO! This is wonderful! I stopped buying pre-made salad dressing last year after discovering how easy and much more enjoyable (not to mention natural) making it myself was. I can’t wait to try this, thank you so much for sharing!
Can hardly wait to try this with homegrown tomatoes….Mmmmm!
[…] found several recipes on the InterWebs that looked promising: Homemade Ketchup from Epicurious, Homemade Ketchup from Kiss My Spatula—which was an adaptation of this recipe from Saveur, and this no-cook ketchup recipe from […]
Thanks for the recipe! I have just bought some luscious red tomatoes and I’m going to try it out for my kids. I really want a healthy alternative to Heinz as I don’t want my kids eating high fructose corn syrup!
Googled “homemade ketchup recipe” and you came up – you wooed me with your photos!! I’ll be trying this soon and stalking your blog… :) thanks!
I googled homemade ketchup and as soon as I saw “kiss my spatula” I knew this was the site for me! My great-gran made fantastic ketchup, and now I can too! Branston Pickle is the best … and HP Sauce is called Brown Sauce (they’re so original over there with names in the UK: red sauce and brown sauce…). Thanks for this site — I’m referring my four sisters to it as well!
This was great! I used romas from the garden. The only thing I changed was I did not have whole allspice, so I used ground & made sure my spice bag was tightly sealed. It was no problem – the ketchup is tremendous. Thank you!
So glad you enjoyed it, Kristi! Happy summer! xo.
I have been thinking about home made ketchup for days! I found your site through a posting from David Lebovitz and am so glad I did. I just bought some clamp lid jars and they were crying out to be filled. This was the perfect recipe to do the job. Delicious, thanks so much!
Hey, this seems very quick and to the point! As others have said, I can’t stand high fructose corn syrup and all of that other unnecessary stuff in ketchup.
I have one question however, I was on this other site and it went at lengths describing sterilizing jars and pressure cooking them and all of that stuff. Is that necessary? How long does your ketchup usually last (as if/when it spoils)?
It also talked of using a crock pot and cutting the tomatoes, getting the seeds out and getting the skins off, is that necessary?
Thank you, very informative blog!
Hi Tyler – Going through the process of canning your jars allows for a much longer shelf life (ie. a year). We like to use up our goods pretty quickly, so up to 3 weeks in jars washed with very hot soapy water, or run through a dishwasher works just fine for us. I haven’t tried the version you mentioned, but the blender and straining through a fine mesh sieve gets out all the seeds in this version. Enjoy and happy summer!
[…] found several recipes on the InterWebs that looked promising: Homemade Ketchup from Epicurious, Homemade Ketchup from Kiss My Spatula—which was an adaptation of this recipe from Saveur, and this no-cook ketchup recipe from […]
Trudi – welcome! So happy to have you and your 4 sisters!
Kristi and Sharon – so glad to hear you enjoyed it!
We are a “KetchupHolic” family. This is one item I try never to run out of, after seeing this simple to make recipe I am going home after work this evening to make it….I can’t wait to try it out on my family. Anything homemade is the best.
[…] a few pantry staples on hand or have an abundance of tomatoes, you can make your own at home. Visit http://www.kissmyspatula.com/2009/05/31/homemade-ketchup for a homemade ketchup recipe that uses whole tomatoes. The first tip below has a simple version […]
[…] Homemade Ketchup […]
Any thoughts on how to store this over the winter? I have lots of tomatoes, a 3 year old who loves ketchup and I like to have some for 3 weeks past the harvest.
I loved the way you wrote up your recipe, but it was the photo that made me dive right in. I am passionate about photography, and overwhelmed by all the wonderful tomatoes from my neighbors yard. I am taking photos as I go, and wish I could post my photos for you!! the taste is amazing, and a HUGE thank you to Kiss My Spatula—great name by the way.
Just saw a tweet that 1 package of store-bought ketchup has the equivalent of 2 cubes of sugar. Yech. I’m going to try yours, which seems much less sugar-laden, sounds delicious (my mouth is watering just reading the menu) and looks divine from the picture. Just have to wait for tomato season to kick in (it’s only March) or dig into my freezer to see if I have any of my flash frozen tomatoes left over from last August.
[…] the tots with a good organic ketchup or use this delicious recipe from “Kiss My Spatula“ for the homemade […]