Homemade Tomato Sauce/Ketchup

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by Deeksha Pathak

Homemade tomato sauce/ketchup is very easy to prepare in our kitchen with a little bit of patience. During the winter season, good quality tomatoes are easily available in abundance. So other than preparing tomato soup this winter season, try some homemade tomato sauce/ketchup also. And trust me, it is really tasty!!

You might be wondering why I am insisting to prepare tomato sauce when it is so easily available in almost all big and small shops. Well, the very first reason is that I grew up watching my mother prepare tomato sauce during each winter season for the whole year. Actually, my siblings and I grew up watching lots of things being prepared by mom rather than buying from the market. Tomato sauce or ketchup, whatever you name it, is one of them!

Homemade Tomato Sauce/Ketchup

The second reason is that I always find market bought sauce too sweet, so I never really like it. The biggest advantage of preparing tomato sauce at home is that we can control the quantity of sugar, salt and can have very less preservative or probably preservative-free sauce. And of course, if we will be using the best quality of fresh tomatoes for sauce, we will be a little lenient with our kiddo if he or she is just licking sauce from the plate rather than finishing their sandwich along with it😉.

Usually, while preparing tomato sauce, white salt is added, but I love the taste of black and rock salt. So here I have added all three salts together and all three salts enhanced the taste of sauce! But you can as well use only white salt.

For garam masala and ginger I have used powdered ones, but whole garam masala and fresh ginger can also be used. If you are using whole garam masala and fresh ginger, tie them in a piece of white muslin cloth. In Hindi we call it ‘potli’. Add this potli in the pressure cooker while boiling tomatoes. The whole flavor of spices will seep out through this potli in tomatoes. After boiling tomatoes, squeeze out all the juice from potli and discard it.

I have not added water while boiling tomatoes. Later, while boiling the pulp that extra water takes a little bit longer to evaporate. To avoid that, after adding chopped tomatoes in the cooker, don’t cover the lid. Keep stirring tomatoes on medium flame and in 5-7 minutes juices of tomatoes will come out. Now close the lid and let the tomatoes boil.

Not adding water is very helpful in increasing the shelf life of sauce.

For preserving the sauce, I have added only vinegar – so the sauce has to be kept in the fridge. But for long time preservation, we need to add sodium benzoate. But my personal suggestion is that rather than adding an extra preservative, we can always prepare a fresh batch of sauce. The lesser the amount of preservative in our food, the better it is! Tomato Sauce/ketchup

Depending on the sourness of tomatoes you have to decide how much sugar is enough in sauce. While preparing sauce, once sugar dissolves completely, take some quantity of sauce in a bowl to taste. Now you can check the taste of salt, sugar, spices and add some more if required.

Homemade Tomato Sauce/Ketchup

Sometimes kids are very fussy and so obsessed with market bought products that they simply refuse to eat homemade stuff. If you think that your kids will refuse to eat homemade sauce, you can trick them easily. Don’t throw away empty bottles of market bought sauce. Sterilize these bottles nicely and dry them thoroughly. Fill homemade sauce in these bottles and job done!  Very soon you will be preparing the next batch of sauce smilingly in your kitchen.

Homemade Tomato Sauce/Ketchup

I have a few more sauce recipes in the blog, can take a look at them also…Salted Caramel Sauce, Strawberry sauce ,Pizza sauce

Ingredients:

Tomato 2 kg
Sugar 1+1/2 cups
White salt 1/2 tsp
Black salt 1/2tsp
Rock salt 3/4 tsp
Ginger powder 1/2 tsp
Garam masala 1 tbsp
Vinegar 2 tbsp

Process:

Wash tomatoes nicely and cut them into four pieces.

Wash tomatoes to prepare sauce

cut tomatoes in 4 pieces

Boil these tomatoes in an open pressure cooker without adding water. Keep stirring continuously until juices have completely seeped out of tomatoes. Now as there is enough liquid in the pressure cooker, add garam masala and dry ginger powder or the potli of whole garam masala and fresh ginger. Close the lid along with weight and let tomatoes cook until they get nicely boiled.

Boil tomatoes without lid

Close the lid and boil tomatoes

Once steam from the cooker cools down, open it and let the boiled tomatoes cool down. If potli of spices are added, squeeze out the juice and discard the potli.

Let boiled tomatoes cool down

Now grind these boiled tomatoes and sieve the puree to get rid of tomato peels and seeds.

sieve tomato puree

Pour this puree in a thick, broad vessel and switch on the stove on high heat. Add all three salts and keep stirring the puree till it starts boiling. Now reduce the heat to medium and let the puree boil till it starts becoming thick. Don’t forget to stir in between – otherwise puree might stick to the bottom of vessel and that burnt smell will waste all our efforts done till now. While stirring, keep scraping the sides of pan.

Boil tomato puree and add salt

Be careful – as puree starts becoming thick, it starts spluttering a lot. When puree begins to  thicken, add sugar. Stir till sugar dissolves completely and you will notice that the colour of the sauce has changed and the consistency of the sauce is again thin.

Add sugar in tomato puree

Now the colour of homemade sauce starts changing

Let it boil till it thickens more and reaches the consistency of thick tomato sauce. Switch off heat and let the sauce cool down completely. Add two tbsp vinegar and mix it very well in the sauce.  With the help of a funnel or piping bag fill tomato sauce in sterilized and completely dry bottles.

Homemade Tomato Sauce/Ketchup is ready

Fill homemade tomato sauce/ketchup in sterilized bottles

Homemade tomato sauce or ketchup is ready to be served with sandwiches, fritters, pakode, fries, parathe wedges etc, etc…. anything you can think of !!

Homemade Tomato Sauce/Ketchup

 

Published by

Deeksha Pathak

I like reading, watching movies, listening to music, doing some art and craft, cooking, baking and exploring new ideas. Baking is my new passion!!

110 thoughts on “Homemade Tomato Sauce/Ketchup”

    1. Ribana, moms and grand-moms are somehow similar everywhere☺️
      Thank you very much.
      I felt that boiling definitely takes time, rest is simple process.
      Have a safe and wonderful week ahead.

  5. I will definitely try this! I really don’t like bought ketchup. I think they put water in and then they thicken it with maize flower.
    I just had a look at the other sauces as well. All yummy!

    1. Oh really, I heard that instead of fresh tomatoes dried tomato powder is used along with dehydrated onions. Well, either tomato powder or maize flour, nothing can beat the taste of fresh tomatoes and not too much efforts in preparation . Now you have garam masala also😉

      2. I am sure you will grow methi and asafoetida, well Indians started growing it now and recently got the first crop. Sounds strange but for so many years we were importing.
        You might try as it needs cold weather!

  7. I normally don’t like tomato ketchup, looking at al the yummy flavors n pics am craving to it 🙂. All your blogs look awesome Deeksha. I would definitely go thru whenever I get time. 👍

    1. Thank you very much Suma for going through the blog posts. Sometimes our taste buds become so much used to with packed food that we think that is the only good or bad taste. Who knows if the same food is homemade, we might give it a try to like it also 😊

    1. Thanks a lot and always welcome Deepika☺️😊
      We all are scared about the quality of the packed food. Not everything, but still there are a few things we can prepare fresh in our kitchen 🙂

  10. I think the ubiquity of big ag ketchup has led many to consider it as something one just doesn’t do. How wrong. Essentially tomato sauce, vinegar, sugar, spices. The one thing commercial producers got right was the container they are in so I appreciate your suggestion to clean and reuse. However there’s a downside. I’ve found the ph of homemade ketchup isn’t quite acidic enough to prevent mold (unless you add the preservative as noted) – even in the fridge. If it’s in a commercial squeeze bottle you then have to both inspect and if there’s mold, then toss.
    The recipe looks lovely with lots of care taken. Lots made too. Have you considered water bathing it in Mason jars so its shelf stable until needed? I take the lazy way out: homemade tomato chutney pureed with tomato paste.

    1. Thank you so much for going through the whole post and pointing out your valuable thoughts.
      Nowadays food stores have almost every thing in packed form, so it is difficult to believe that many things actually can be done in our kitchen. Sauce, potato chips, rice chips, pickles and even vermicelli was prepared by my parent’s neighborhood aunts. We got gadgets for convenience in the kitchen but forgot to cook.

      Yes, ph is not sufficient to preserve homemade sauce even in the fridge. That’s why my mom used to add both preservatives. I decided only vinegar as I am fine to prepare next batch.
      Mason jars are considered best for keeping sauce but I had these bottles so didn’t buy.
      Water bath canning is a good idea to increase shelf life but this process needs a lot of patience and precautions.
      Probably some other time with a different sauce in less quantity I might try this method…!

    1. You are always welcome Kamal and thank you very much for your lovely appreciation 😘❤️
      Can’t remember how my mother started preparing homemade sauce but the whole neighborhood aunts used to do it in each winter season as tomatoes are very cheap these days.
      Still can’t say how economical it is but we can bet on the quality of home made sauce!!

  17. That’s amazing Deeksha! Now you wouldn’t have to worry about store preservatives! At least in this! But can we reduce the sugar to 1cup if we don’t want it too sweet? And how much quantity does this make comparing it to store bought? (500 g and etc)

    1. Yes Aarushi, for the last 5-6 years we stopped buying breads, biscuits, cakes, sauce, aerated drinks, juices. Trying to keep our food preservative free as much as possible. I sell whipping cream cakes but personally we either have tea cakes or ganache based ones.
      Decide the quantity of sugar based on the sweet or sour of tomatoes. Quantity will be again based on the quality of tomatoes whether tomatoes are pulpy or juicy. I guess I got around 700 or 800 grams sauce.

      1. Thank you for the information! Wow! U sell cakes? That is surprising and I don’t know why! It’s just that it seems like you are already busy with the family and the blog too.(like you have to answer so many comments and then type the post out!😀
        My mom is just like you! She also wants to avoid food preservatives as much as she can. That’s why we got a bread maker so we can make bread at home, we have stopped bringing biscuits and cakes too as I make them!🤗
        My friends say that I should start selling the whipping cream cakes😂but they just joke around. I haven’t yet tried out any ganache cakes yet. But probably on my sisters birthday, I’ll make a truffle cake. So knowing that you sell them, You must have a great experience. Can you guide me in my cake making? (Just a request) you can go to my blog post for the cakes I made and read it through. Please tell me if there are any other tips or suggestions or any improvements that I could make.

      4. Ya i know. Starting business was a joke😂. I know it’s too early right now for me…even a YouTube channel is too early. So my parents said that they thought blog was the best suitable option.and even I thought so. Thank you for your concern tho!

      5. Aarushi, improvements happen with the feedback of customer. If your friends are joking also, initially you can try in the beginning by gifting them small cakes at their birthdays. Ask their honest feedback and improve yourself. For practice you can buy dummy cake, wrap it with fondant and practice decorations.Very important point-Don’t get offended by customer’s feedback. Each customer has different choice, so if same recipe works well for 5 customers, not necessarily it will be good for others as well. And never forget that in the beginning you want customers to trust you. They have different options other than you, so until you make them addicted with your goodies, and you be sure confident about your work, keep up your smile☺

      6. I saw the big message and the device was right in fron tif me so I knew that I have to read it right now. Thank you so much for the information! I’m so glad to hear this coming from you! I was kidding actually. My friends don’t joke around. Some,times they get too serious that I should start a shop😂
        I know that focusing on school is important which is why I myself, am not convinced about commercial work. Having a blog is mire than enough for me actually!🙃🙃

      7. If you are sure that you want to grow in this field only, then nothing is wrong in working in this direction. But do a lot of practice before selling. No one gives honest feedback for ‘free ka cake’ until they pay money, so practice, practice and practice.. and for practicing you have to gift a few cakes free of cost. After all how much white flour you can consume personally.

      8. As of now I know that I want to go in this baking and cooking felid only. That is true.. nice to hear from you and thanks for ur opinion. It was something I was looking for …. a guidance!

      9. Sorry for occupying you for too long! I really am. But are there any ways to decorate a cake for Christmas apart from any type of cream?(only if you are up for it)😬😬

  18. That’s awesome Deeksha! Although it seems like some effort to make it am sure the end result is worth it . Thanks for the detailed explanation.

  20. Nothing could beat such home-made condiments, I think everyone, who wants to keep theselves away from harmful additives, would like to try this recipe. Thanks for a wonderful share.

    1. You are always welcome Megala😊
      Now a days it is so difficult to keep ourselves away from packed food. So whatever we can do to keep ourselves away from them within or limits, we should try.

  30. rather than adding an extra preservative, we can always prepare a fresh batch of sauce. The lesser the amount of preservative in our food, the better it is! Nice 👌 needs so much attention and health consciousness..

  32. Ok Deeksha. You are OFFICIALLY the most Goddessy, Womanly Woman I know!!! You even make Your own Ketchup! I LOVE it! You’re amazing! You just gifted lots of joy! Thank You, Cheers and Rock On with Your beautiful self!!! 😃❤️🤗

    1. Katy, I am deeply humbled with your sweet and loving appreciation❤💕
      I am not as good as you for putting feeling and gratitude in beautiful words, but thank you very much dear friend🥰

  33. When I was a child we lived in Afghanistan where Ketchup was not available, so my mom used to make it. I remember her using an old fashioned meat grinder to grind the tomatoes. This recipe brings back a good childhood memory for me. 🙂😃

      1. Yes mom’s are amazing. I miss mine a lot. She passed away 6 years ago. My childhood in Afghanistan was very fun. Afghanistan was peaceful then. I lived there before the Russians invaded.

  37. Thanks for the tips re: boiling tomatoes and water. I often have runny tomato sauce, so next time I’ll be a bit more patient – and will leave the lid off.

    This sounds wonderful. And I love the idea of washing out bottles from the store and putting your own ketchup/sauce in it!

    1. Thank you very much Ruth for going through the whole post. This year my sister also ended up with slightly thin sauce as she also boiled tomatoes with water. Later got lazy with boiling, boiling and boiling 😁😂

  39. This is the perfect moment making homemade ketchup. Tomatoes are the best gift from God. Homemade tomato sauce is wonderful for family.
    I am going to make it for my family this weekend. Your recipe with ginger powder is great!

    1. Dear Oscar, many many thanks😘
      Yes ,winter season brings the best tomato crop. WE should use them as much as we can in different forms. I hope your family would also agree with the addition of ginger!

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