If you have a glut of homegrown tomatoes, or find a bargain in your local shop, this tomato ketchup recipe is a great way to extend the fresh taste of tomatoes throughout the winter. Using a few simple ingredients, you can create a wholesome version of a store cupboard favourite – and know exactly what you’re eating. And more to the point, you can allow your children to add it to their burger and chips guilt free.
Tomatoes
Tomatoes have become a ubiquitous ingredient in kitchens around the world. From fresh tomatoes in salads, to tinned tomatoes to throw into a multitude of sauces, or everyone’s favourite condiment… tomato ketchup. With a few ingredients you can create this store cupboard gem, and trust me when I say the flavour is ten times better than even the most well known brand!
Other tomato recipes
Here is just a short selection of some other tomato recipes you can find on my site:
- Creamy roasted cherry tomato risotto
- Squid, chorizo, and cherry tomatoes on toast
- Panzanella salad
- Simple cheese and tomato tart
Growing tomatoes
I absolutely love it when it’s time to plant tomato seeds indoors at the end of January/early February. Let’s face it, it’s not the cheeriest of seasons in the year. With the post Holiday blues, short days, and likely cold and wet weather, it’s a joy to be start off the planting calendar and a new year in the garden.
From their tiny seeds to the first seedlings, and then nurturing them outdoors in the greenhouse (or continuing indoors) until the temperatures in May are warm enough, it’s a long journey. And once they are planted outside, that’s when the real labour of love begins! With frequent watering, pruning, and feeding with nutrients such as coffee grinds and crushed eggshells (yes, I even cooked up cleaned egg shells and crush them to sprinkle on the roots of my tomatoes!), until you reach harvest time in late July through to September.
Then you are rewarded with the long-awaited taste of freshly picked tomatoes. None of that watery, supermarket, nonsense, that looks like a tomato but tastes very far from it with flesh as hard as bullets. So is it all worth it… of course it is!!
Varieties of tomatoes to plant
I normally plant a variety of shapes and sizes. From the large ‘Beefsteak’ and ‘Marmande’, to the mid-sized normally high producers such as ‘Alicante’, ‘Crimson Crush’, ‘Roma’, and ‘Moneymaker’. Then there are the small and sweet cherry tomatoes where I go for the likes of Tumbling Tom, or ‘Sweet Success’. This year I’ve save seeds from a yellow Isle of Wight tomato I bought and we’ll see what we get next year!
To sterilised your jars, put the glass jars (omitting the lids) in a low oven at 50 degrees C/120 degrees F for 15-20 minutes.
Stored in a cool, dark place, the unopened ketchup will be fine for up to 6 months. Once opened, store in the fridge and use within a month.
Tomato Ketchup
Equipment
- 1 large heavy based pan – minimum 2 litres
Ingredients
- 1.5 kg ripe tomatoes
- 500 g onions
- 125 g caster sugar
- 3 tbsp mustard powder
- 3 cloves of garlic
- 1 tsp salt
- 150 ml red wine vinegar
Instructions
- Roughly chop both the tomatoes and the onions and add to the large, heavy based pan.
- Add the sugar, mustard powder, crushed garlic, salt and red wine vinegar also to the pan.
- Place on a medium to high heat, stirring regularly until the mixture comes to a boil.
- Reduce the heat and simmer, uncovered, for approximately 45 minutes. Stirring occasionally.
- Allow the mixture to cool slightly before pouring into a blender or using a hand blender to puree the ketchup to a fine consistency.
- Clean out the large pan.
- Sieve the pureed ketchup into the clean pan, ensuring you push the mixture with a spatula and get all the tasty tomato goodness. You should just be left with tiny fragments of tomato skin and seeds.
- Bring the ketchup back to a boil and then transfer into warm, dry bottles of jars and seal with airtight tops.
- Label your jars or bottles and store in a cool dark place for up to 6 months.
Notes
- To sterilise your jam jars put the glass jars (omitting the lids) in a low oven at 50 degrees C/120 degrees F for 15-20 minutes.
- This ketchup will keep in a cool dark place unopened for 6 months. Once opened, store for up to a month in the fridge.
