How to make the most delicious homemade ketchup that tastes better than anything you can buy at the store. This recipe is easy to make from scratch and the ketchup lasts in the fridge for a month.
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I wouldn’t tell you to make your own ketchup if I didn’t think it was worth it. This ketchup recipe makes the most delicious ketchup that knocks the socks off anything you can buy in the condiment aisle.
I love how this recipe uses real ingredients and how we can control how sweet our ketchup turns out. In our ketchup recipe below, I’ve given a range of sugar so you can adjust to your taste.
Key Ingredients
- Onion, garlic, and ginger: Add so much flavor to this homemade ketchup. The ginger adds just a little spice, and the onion cooks to be sweet and soft, helping thicken the sauce.
- Allspice: I love adding a bit of spice to this sauce. It makes it warm and toasty. If you’re unsure, add less than suggested in the recipe below.
- Tomato paste and canned tomatoes: Make our sauce rich. I use canned whole tomatoes, which break down and blend into a smooth, shiny sauce.
- Brown sugar: You can control how much sugar you add to the homemade ketchup. My family likes 1/4 cup (4 tablespoons).
- Apple cider vinegar: Keeps our sauce nice and tangy, just like store-bought brands.
How to Make Homemade Ketchup
To make ketchup, cook sliced onion with olive oil until soft, sweet, and lightly browned. Then stir in garlic, fresh ginger, and allspice (to make it spicy ketchup, add a pinch or two of red pepper flakes, too).
Allow everything to toast in the pan, which makes them extra flavorful. After a minute, stir in the tomato paste and cook for one more minute to remove any raw tomato flavor. Then, toss in the rest of the ingredients (canned tomatoes, brown sugar, apple cider vinegar, and salt).
Cook the ketchup until thick and shiny, breaking the tomatoes up a bit with a spoon while it cooks. Then, blend until smooth. Once you’re happy with the consistency, pour it into a jar and keep it in the fridge for up to one month.
What to Serve with Homemade Ketchup
We love this easy ketchup, especially since it lasts in the fridge for one month! We serve it next to French fries, sweet potato fries, and rosemary baked potato wedges (pictured). My son also loves dipping our homemade tater tots, chicken nuggets, and popcorn chicken into the ketchup.
I also use homemade ketchup in a few of my favorite recipes. It’s added to the glaze for this classic meatloaf and our favorite turkey meatloaf. I also use it for my favorite BBQ sauce for ribs.
More Homemade Sauces
Seriously Good Homemade Ketchup
- PREP
- COOK
- TOTAL
Homemade ketchup is simple and much more flavorful than anything you can buy at the store. I use 4 tablespoons of sugar, but adjust the sugar to your taste.
Watch Us Make the Recipe
You Will Need
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 medium onion, sliced into half moons
2 garlic cloves, chopped, about 1 tablespoon
1-inch piece of ginger, peeled and chopped
1/4 teaspoon to 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes, optional for spicy ketchup
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 (28-ounce) can whole tomatoes in juice
2 to 5 tablespoons brown sugar, depending on how sweet you like your ketchup
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
Salt and fresh ground black pepper
Directions
1Heat oil over medium heat. Add the onions and cook until they are softened, sweet, and lightly browned, about 8 minutes. Add the garlic, ginger, red pepper flakes, and allspice and cook, stirring often, for 2 minutes.
2Add the tomato paste and cook, stirring around the pan, until it turns red to burnt orange, about 2 minutes.
3Add the can of tomatoes with juice, 2 tablespoons brown sugar, cider vinegar, a generous pinch of salt, and a few grinds of black pepper. Stir, and then taste to see if you need to add more sugar (we usually add 3 to 4 tablespoons).
4Bring to a simmer, reduce the heat slightly and cook at a low simmer, stirring occasionally, until thickened and shiny, about 20 minutes. Taste then adjust with more sugar, salt or pepper.
5Blend until smooth, let cool to room temperature, then refrigerate for up to one month.
Adam and Joanne's Tips
- Use fresh tomatoes: Use 3 cups chopped fresh tomatoes.
- A note about blending: You can use an immersion blender or regular blender. If you use a regular blender, it is best to blend in batches and not fill the blender as much as you usually would since the ketchup is so hot. We like to remove the center insert of the lid and cover it with a kitchen towel while blending — this helps some of the steam release and prevents the lid from popping off (which can be a big, hot mess).
- The nutrition facts provided below are estimates. We assumed 1/4 cup of the brown sugar.
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How much does this recipe yield? We go through Ketchup like CRAZY!!! I’m thinking about doubling the recipe…God Bless…
This recipe makes about 3 cups.
I just made this recipe. Delicious!! I added bell peppers to the recipe and its great!! I also used fresh tomatoes and I did not peel then and they blended down no problem..
Thanks
I love bell pepper and tomatoes together, so I bet the addition was delicious. Thanks for sharing, Heather.
First time on your site . I am going to try the ketchup and have a question. The tomato seeds – do they get blended enough to be smooth or do I need a press? I am going to give to friends in squeeze bottles so am thinking about clogging
This is a thicker style of ketchup. I think you should be okay, but if you are worried, you can press the ketchup through a fine mesh sieve.
Wondering if you have canned this recipe to make it shelf stable? If so how long did you process and water bath or pressure canned?
We haven’t personally pressure-canned this homemade ketchup, so we don’t feel comfortable providing a method without testing it ourselves. We recommend finding a recipe and instructions specifically designed for pressure canning ketchup. Reliable sources include the National Center for Home Food Preservation and websites from established canning brands.
I was skeptical, but I made this for the Fall off the Bone ribs I made for Xmas dinner. This ketchup is amazing. My husband LOVES this stuff. He eats it with potato chips, like it’s salsa. It is so full of flavor, and goes well with just about anything you want to make it with. It would even be amazing as a shrimp cocktail type sauce. I won’t be buying store bought ketchup again. Yep, it’s that good.
So happy you and your husband enjoy the recipe, Tracy!
The ketchup was very good. First time making it so the second time will even be better
Just made this to use up some of our own tomatoes.. excellent recipe. Also made a version with 300g chopped peppers and 300g tomatoes (liquidized) with 2 tablespoons of molasses sugar. worked well too.
Do you really need to add any sugar to this at all?
Hi Conner, You can adjust the sugar amount to your tastes. The sugar listed balances out the spices and tomatoes. It also mimics what we are used to with store-bought ketchup.
can you freeze it for long term storage?
Yes, I’d imagine this to freeze well for 3 months or so.
Really good. I made the recipe as written only made it low carb by substituting 1 tsp blackstrap molasses and 1/4 cup of granulated stevia — the kind that is a 1:1 replacement for sugar. If you don’t like it this sweet tasting cut back on the stevia but keep the tsp of blackstrap molasses. I’m diabetic so I have to watch every gram of net carbs and I really like ketchup.
This looks wonderful! Can you can this? If so how would you go about doing so?
Yes! Fill jars to the neck (1″ headspace), wipe rim of jar, add lid and rings, and process them for 20 minutes. If you don’t have a water bath canner you can use a tall stock pot with a hand towel placed in the bottom to keep the jars from making contact with the bottom of the pot. Ketchup keeps for a long time.
love this site
When you use fresh tomatoes, do you peel them first? Or does it not matter since you’ll be blending it?
It is up to you. I’m fine skipping peeling the tomatoes since the sauce is blended, but it would not hurt to peel them if you’d prefer.
I made the ketchup for a recipe that only used 3tbsp. Tonight I made spaghetti sauce and used the ketchup as my tomatoes. So Good! Rave reviews from the whole family…and I don’t even like spaghetti sauce.
It’s absolutely delicious! Can it be frozen?
Yes.
Hi Freya, We are sorry that the ketchup was too sweet for you. The expectation for how sweet ketchup should be ranges from person to person — we’ve had some commenters say they felt they needed more sugar than 1/4 cup. To accommodate more preferences, I’ve added a larger range of sugar to the recipe and suggested to start with 2 tablespoons, taste and go from there. We usually end up with 4 tablespoons, but now the recipe is written so you can add to your own taste. Thanks for your feedback!
Can’t wait to try the tater tot recipe and the ketchup recipe.