Home-Made Tomato Ketchup Recipe

My home-made tomato ketchup recipe is easy to make and fantastic in its own right or as an ingredient in another barbecue sauce recipes.

Homemade tomato ketchup being bottled up

Doing it yourself just adds something that you can't get out of a bottle, there just seems to be an extra zing of tomato flavour and a bit more punch from the vinegar. I guess it's just altogether more natural.

I've read and written a number of homemade barbecue sauce recipes that start with tommy k as the base ingredient and there's always something nagging at the back of my mind telling me that buying tomato ketchup isn't quite right.

There's also the health angle that by using your own homemade tommy k you know exactly what's in it (especially the sugar content).

I remember seeing a TV programme with chef Gary Rhodes and he made black pudding fritters, stabbed them with a cocktail stick and dunked them in home-made ketchup. I made the ketchup according to his recipe and wow, that was me converted.

Since then I've made a few adaptations to put my own stamp on the recipe and as you'd expect, I think that it's just that little bit better!

Also, rather than fritters, I prefer to use this home-made tomato ketchup recipe on my own barbecue breakfast and burgers but don't take my word for it, taste it for yourself.

So whether you're using this homemade tomato ketchup recipe to use as a barbecue sauce ingredient or simply as a more fresh tasting condiment, I hope that you enjoy it.

This recipe makes about a pint so have a bottle or two in wait for the final mixture.

Yield:- 1 pint (approx ½ litre)

Preparation Time:- 15 mins
Cooking Time:- 60 mins

Total Time:- 1 hr 15 mins

Allergens:

Mustard is the only allergen in this recipe.

Ingredients:-

1.5 kg or 3lb ripe tomatoes
250ml or 8 fl oz cider vinegar
8 tablespoons Demerara sugar
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon English mustard powder
1 garlic clove crushed
Tabasco to taste
1 tablespoon tomato purée
½ teaspoon cornflour

Method:-

Pour the vinegar and sugar into a large pan and warm through to dissolve all the sugar. When the sugar has dissolved, add all the remaining ingredients except for the cornflour and bring to a boil.

When everything comes to the boil, cover and allow it to simmer for about 40 minutes before leaving it to cool.

Now transfer the mix to a food processor, give it a wizz to break up any lumps and then return it to the pan via a sieve (push the residue through the sieve with the back of a spoon to get all the juices out).

While warming the ketchup through again, mix the cornflour with a little water in a cup and add a small amount to the ketchup. The cornflour will thicken the tomato ketchup and stop it from separating so add just enough to get the consistency that you want. Allow it to cool and then give it a final blitz with a stick blender just to eliminate any lumps then you can bottle up.