Whip Up Homemade, Gluten-Free Ketchup

Ever since a reader asked about making homemade ketchup, I have wanted to find a minute do it. To really make it from scratch, I would have to grow the tomatoes, cook them down, put them through the sieve, and add all the ingredients. That sounds a lot like growing beet tops for making green smoothies or growing elderberries to make an herbal for cold and flu. There is an easier way!

For this homemade ketchup, there is a shortcut, and it mixes up in a hurry. Both ways, you can save on your food bill and have a healthier product. Remember that when you make things from scratch, they don’t have the ‘natural flavors’ or preservatives; although many of the spices, the raw honey and the salt are natural preservatives. (Raw honey is the only food that will never spoil if stored properly.)

Here are the ingredients:

1 can tomato paste ~ 6 oz; preferably organic

2 tbsp. cider vinegar

3 tbsp. honey, preferably raw

1 tsp. sea salt (to taste)

1 tsp. garlic powder (to taste) or 1 clove put through a garlic press (fine)

1 tsp. onion powder

1/4 tsp. allspice

1 tsp. black strap molasses

Several dashes cayenne OR chili powder (optional to taste)

1/2 – 2/3 cup water (depending on your taste and desired thickness)

First, mix all the ingredients together in a ceramic or glass bowl.

Mix, (minus the water) together into a thick paste. Lastly, add in the water and blend by hand to a ketchup-y consistency.

Mix together, cover and refrigerate.

Keep the finished product in a recycled ketchup bottle if you like to squirt it on or keep it in a more rustic Ball jar. If your home is anything like our household, the ketchup will be used pretty quickly (meatloaf, steak fries, burgers, steak) ~otherwise, you will want to use it up in a month or so.

Making this is a simple recipe would be a good time to allow a younger daughter (or son) to become your assistant cook. I wanted our children to get very comfortable in the kitchen. We’ve had some of our most fun ‘doing school’ in the kitchen.

Here is a bit of the fascinating history of ketchup:

It’s clear from the earliest English recipes that the original ketchup was a stinky fish sauce. An English recipe in 1736 calls for boiling down “2 quarts of strong stale beer and half a pound of anchovies”, and then letting it ferment. A full early recipe for ketchup was published in Eliza Smith’s The Compleat Housewife: Or Accomplished Gentlewoman’s Companion in 1727. cookbook. The cookbook was the first published in the American colonies in 1742.