Ferment Your Own Homemade Ketchup

I don’t eat a lot of ketchup but when I do it seems way sweeter than it needs to be.  Hmm. Nutritional Label: Serving size: 1 tablespoon. 3.7g of sugar per serving. uh-oh. I usually eat a couple of ounces of the stuff at a time.

2 T / oz x 3oz serving x 3.7g per serving >>> 22.2 grams of sugar.

Yipe!

Like I said, I don’t eat too much of the stuff.  Maybe I can make my own!

All those fresh tomatoes this time of year would be yummy, but I don’t want to do all that boiling and reducing.  I’ll do myself a favor and start with canned tomato paste.  If anyone has a better method, please let me know.  Other ingredients to be gathered: honey, salt, homemade vinegar, fermented garlic, and a little red pepper.

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Homemade Ketchup Ingredients

Mix everything together in a bowl or a large jar.  The recipe below filled this 28 ounce jar perfectly will a little headroom for the fermenter.

Homemade Ketchup

Homemade Ketchup

The Perfect Pickler is a cool thing.  My wife found one at Bed, Bath, and Beyond and knew it’d be right up my alley!  You can buy one on Amazon.com  if you want to play along at home.  The concept is cool.  The included dvd is a little amateur, but the product works great!

The Perfect Pickler full of Homemade Ketchup

The Perfect Pickler full of Homemade Ketchup

Once everything is ready for fermenting, you can stash the ketchup in your fermenting closet:

Homemade Ketchup

Homemade Ketchup

Most of the recipes that I looked at on the Internet say to let this go for about 4 days.  Mine was just getting started on the fourth day.  Keep it someplace warm and dark, like the laundry room and taste every day or so.  Put it in the fridge when it’s pleasantly tart.

Fermented Homemade Ketchup Recipe:

Homemade Fermented Ketchup

Ingredients

  • 2 12- oz cans of tomato paste
  • 1/3 cup honey
  • 3 Tb raw raspberry vinegar
  • 3 cloves garlic chopped
  • 4 oz sauerkraut juice or fresh whey
  • 1 tablespoon finely ground salt
  • a little hot pepper

Instructions

  • Homemade Ketchup Ingredients
    Mix everything together in a bowl or a large jar.  The recipe below filled this 28 ounce jar perfectly will a little headroom for the fermenter.
    Once everything is ready for fermenting, you can stash the ketchup in your fermenting closet:.
    Most of the recipes that I looked at on the Internet say to let this go for about 4 days.  Mine was just getting started on the fourth day.  Keep it someplace warm and dark, like the laundry room and taste it every day or so.  Put it in the fridge when it’s pleasantly tart.


About John MacDowall

I was born in Poughkeepsie, NY. We moved to a farm during middle school where I learned about raising animals and growing food. Now, I live in the affluent suburbs of Washington, DC and wonder why people eat the way they do.

One Comment

  1. I have been buying from kpketchup.com to get great tasting ketchup without any sugar, but I hadn’t thought of fermenting ketchup. I may have to try this.

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