How to make Homemade Ketchup - you ask...?!

Well, it requires lots of tomatoes and lots of time...

To make these three jars (2.350L) of ketchup I needed 5kg or 11b of Tomatoes
Why would anyone make ketchup if it can be bought at the store for cheap?!
Exactly!! This is why!

If it's so cheap and it requires many, many tomatoes to make a 1L bottle of jar,
what's in those bottles I ask...?
My guess is .... some tomatoes, water, sugar and lots of CORN STARCH!!

This is what you need to make it:

5 kg fresh tomatoes
1 medium onion
3 cloves garlic
2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground pepper
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp ground clove
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
4 tbs brown sugar
4 tbs honey
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar

Also you'll need an immersion blender aka stick blender.

Prepare the tomatoes as you would for the super basic tomato sauce

Place them in the boiling water
Keep them in for few seconds
Remove from water and place them on the sieve
Now, peel the skin off of the tomatoes

By using the immersion blender, bland the tomatoes until smooth

Next, finely chop the onion

Add onion, garlic and the remaining spices to the pureed tomatoes
Mix well.
Heat up the pot on medium
Once the tomato mixture boils reduce the heat to low

Continue cooking on low for the next 3-4 hours mixing it frequently
Place two sticks (e.g.. kabobs' sticks) on the rim of the pot and place the lid on top of them
This way the lid won't touch the pot and it's a great way for the excess fluids to evaporate from the pot and the ketchup mixture is going to thicken up naturally.

After few hours of cooking

The ketchup mixture should look something like this.

Once you achieve the desire consistency,
Taste it again and add additional seasoning or sweetness if desired
Blend the mixture one more time

Pour the ketchup on the sieve and strain
Continue mixing and pressing the ketchup until only seeds are left on the sieve

Pour the HOT ketchup in glass bottles or jars

(use a funnel if you have one...)

Screw on the tops and decorate :)

What do you think?
Would you make ketchup yourself now?

Happy Canning !!

Homemade products are the BEST :)

---

Unless otherwise mentioned, all the photographs are taken by me and the content published on this blog are the property of @awesome-seven. Please DO NOT copy the material or photos in full or in any part without my permission.