This is a recipe from Bernardin for home-canned ketchup starting from scratch, with whole tomatoes. It requires a very large quantity of tomatoes, so it’s best made at the end of summers when whole, fresh tomatoes are cheap. Note that it takes a long simmering time to reduce the sauce to the appropriate thickness for ketchup.
Alternatively, here’s a recipe to make quick ketchup that starts from purchased tomato sauce called “passata” — handy in the winter and when life is busy.
The recipe
Jar size choices: Quarter-litre (½ US pint / 250 ml / 8 oz) OR half-litre (1 US pint / 500 ml/ 16 oz)
Processing method: Water bath or steam canning
Yield: 4 x half-litre (US pint) jars
Headspace: 2 cm (½ inch)
Processing time: 15 minutes either size jar
Tomato Ketchup
Ingredients
- 6 kg tomatoes (13 lbs. 6 litres / US quarts puréed finely in food processor. Measurements after prep.)
- 250 g onion (finely chopped. 1 ½ cups chopped, ½ lb, about 3 medium-sized onions. Measurements after prep.)
- 2 teaspoons cloves (whole)
- 10 cm cinnamon (stick)
- ¾ teaspoon allspice (whole berries)
- 1 ½ tablespoons celery seed
- 375 ml cider vinegar (5% acidity or higher. 1 ½ cups / 12 oz)
- ½ teaspoon cayenne pepper
- ½ teaspoon mustard powder (optional)
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder (optional)
- 175 g sugar (white. ¾ cup / 6 oz) OR 1 teaspoon liquid stevia
- 2 tablespoons pickling salt (OR non-bitter, non-clouding salt substitute)
Instructions
- Wash and peel tomatoes; put in a very large pot.
- Wash, peel and chop onion; add to pot.
- Simmer the tomatoes and onions uncovered until they are reduced to a bit less than ½ in volume. (About 20 minutes.) Then press through a sieve or a food mill.
- You will end up with tomato sauce equalling about 2 litres / 8 cups / 64 oz. If you have lots more than that, your variety of tomatoes may have had a lot of water in them -- keep on simmering the sauce to get it down to roughly around this amount. (You may wish to do up till here the day before, then refrigerate overnight, and bring back up to a boil the next day and proceed.)
- Tie the cloves, cinnamon, allspice berries and celery seed in a cloth, put in a large measuring jug with the vinegar, nuke in microwave for 4 minutes.
- Remove carefully from microwave, watching for liquid surge. Stir, then remove and discard spice bag.
- Add vinegar along with cayenne pepper, mustard powder, garlic powder, either sugar OR liquid stevia, and either salt OR salt sub to the tomato sauce. Bring to a boil, lower right away to a simmer, let simmer slowly uncovered until the ketchup reaches the thickness you desire on a spoon. It should be able to form a mound. This could take several hours.
- Fill each heated jar with the ketchup mixture up to 2 cm (½ inch) from the top.
- Debubble, adjust headspace.
- Wipe jar rims.
- Put lids on.
- Process in a water bath or steam canner.
- Process either size jars for 15 minutes; increase time as needed for your altitude.
Notes
Nutrition
Reference information
How to water bath process.
How to steam can.
When water-bath canning or steam canning, you must adjust the processing time for your altitude.
For stevia, Better Stevia liquid stevia was the stevia used.
For the salt sub, we used Herbamare as it is non-bitter and non-clouding.
More information about Sugar and Salt-Free Canning in general.
More information about canning tomatoes in general.
Australia and New Zealand vinegar strength special notes.
What is the shelf life of home canned goods?
Recipe Source
Source: Tomato Ketchup. In: Bernardin Guide to Home Preserving. Toronto, Canada: Bernardin Ltd. 2013. Page 80.
Modifications made:
- Cut batch in half;
- Added mustard powder and garlic powder.
What changes can I get to get my ketchup the way I like it?
People used to always make their own ketchup at home, until people such as Henry John Heinz managed to convince housewives that they could trust the safety and quality of commercial products.
Mr Heinz would likely be furious at what they’ve done to his products today. So laden with sugar and salt is ketchup now that it’s no longer an innocent little dollop on the side of your plate: it’s essentially tomato candy, with the bonus of as much salt as they can get it to absorb.
When you try to buy reduced-sugar ketchup; they up the salt in it. When you try to buy reduced-salt ketchup, they up the sugar in it. You can’t win.
You can, though, if you withdraw entirely from the ketchup rat race at the store: making your own ketchup can restore ketchup to being a healthy, good-for-you condiment again.
You may increase or decrease the sweetness or the salt. That will not impact safety. You may vary the dry seasoning. You may decrease the onion, but do not increase it as that would decrease the acidity. For the same reason, do not add any other fresh vegetable such as celery or green pepper. Do not decrease the amount of vinegar. You may use any type of vinegar you wish, but keep the strength at 5% or higher.
Essentially, ketchup is about sweetness, saltiness and dry spicing anyway, and thankfully you may vary those without impacting safety to work towards a ketchup that you like best.
If you want a recipe that uses different fresh ingredients or a different amount of vinegar, then you really are after another recipe altogether. There are many different recipes for tomato ketchup: look for a tested recipe from a reputable source such as Ball, the USDA, Canadian Living or your local University Extension Service. Do not use unsourced recipes found on the Internet or blog sites as they could be unsafe. No one wants to be dipping his / her French fries into a side dollop of botulism.
If you don’t want to can this recipe, you may also freeze it in containers for long-term storage.
Safety Check
This Ketchup has a pH of 4.08. Well below the upper safety cut-off of 4.6 pH.
Nutrition information
Regular version
Per 2 tablespoons:
- 31 calories, 222 mg sodium
Sugar and salt-free version
Per 2 tablespoons:
- 21 calories, 5 mg sodium
- Weight Watchers PointsPlus®: 2 tablespoons, 0 points; 3 to 6 tablespoons, 1 point.
* Nutrition info provided by https://caloriecount.about.com
* PointsPlus™ calculated by healthycanning.com. Not endorsed by Weight Watchers® International, Inc, which is the owner of the PointsPlus® registered trademark.
* Better Stevia ® is a registered trademark of the NOW Foods Company.
* Herbamare ® is a registered trademark of the A. Vogel Corporation.
Kelly Ronayne
Hi, in the ingredients list it says your 6kg of tomatoes should make 6L tomatoes pureed in a food processor, but in the recipe it says you should have 2L after the initial ~20 min simmering & passing through a food mill. Can I confirm that the 6L is a hypothetical ‘if you were to pass the fresh tomatoes through a food processor but we won’t do that’, and the 2L is the correct amount we want after simmering. I note the other commenter found she had 5L after simmering, so wanted to make sure there wasn’t a typo.
Erica
Hi,
Will adding more water help neutralize the acidity of ketchup? Both in your recipe and in store bought ketchups. I have acid reflux and hate heartburn. Thanks!
Healthy Canning
Adding water will lower the acidity, and that is something you never want to do with a water-bath canning recipe as it risks making it unsafe. A quick Google seems to show that any kind of tomato products, even without vinegar, can trigger acid reflux.
Jordan
Am I able to use store bought canned tomatoes in this recipe? Thank you!
Healthy Canning
Take canned tomatoes, purée finely in food processor, and continue doing so until you have measured out into a pot 6 litres / 6 US quarts of tomato. Then proceed to step 2 of the recipe. Note the simmering times suggested are guesstimates and will always vary: focus on reaching the various thickness stages described in the recipe.
Judy
I wanted to check on a substitution in the recipe. Because their acidity is higher than ripe tomatoes, could you safely sub green tomatoes to make a ketchup out of the glut of tomatoes we often get when harvesting end of season before a freeze? It seems like that would be OK and a good use of those green tomatoes, but I wanted to check first before making the recipe in this way.
Healthy Canning
Yes, you are right about the acidity. It would be fine — and interesting — to make a green tomato version of the ketchup.
Corinne
This sounds delicious and a perfect way to use up some of my wayyyyyyy too many tomatoes! How long will this ketchup last once opened and stored in the fridge? We don’t go through a ton of ketchup, so I’m just wondering if I should use 1/2 pints instead, if it doesn’t last long once opened. Thanks!
Healthy Canning
It lasts quite a while once opened and stored in the fridge, months and months and months.
Michele
Thanks for publishing this. Just a bit of feedback – I haven’t owned a microwave for most of my life (I am in my 50’s) and do quite a bit of cooking. I was surprised you had this as a direction without an alternative instruction. I can figure it out, but thought I would mention.
Ashley
After I peeled the tomatoes, I weighed 6kg of peeled tomatoes and 250g of finely chopped oneions but after cooking down for about 20mins and putting through the food mill, I ended up with 5litres of tomato sauce! Will the test of the measurements be as per recipe and it all just reduces down at the right safe acidity?
Healthy Canning
The tomatoes must have had an extraordinary amount of liquid in them, and would require more simmering to drive the excess water out. e’ll add a note about that to the recipe.
Dorothy Jenson
I like Hot Ketchup so I an Habenero to the batch/ I like it that way.
shirley jones
Mine isn’t getting thick after 20min. Do I cook it longer
Healthy Canning
Yes, cook it until the thickness is reached. The time is just a guideline.