Ketchup for Canning
This is my first canning recipe, ever. I don’t make up recipes for canning in general because I don’t have a lab to test for safety. But this recipe of ketchup for canning is adapted from the Ball Complete Book of Home Preservation and the vegetable to acid ratio is the exact same- so I am positive it is safe! The only adjustments made were to dried spices and sugar.
The original went a little overboard on spices and this version is SO MUCH BETTER! Of all the recipes I’ve come up with over the years, I consider this one to be in the top 10.
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It also has a super smooth finished product and a different method for getting the finished result. I hope you like it.
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Tips
- If you don’t want to boil down the ketchup in a pot, you can also use an electric roasting pan. We used this last year, and it makes a darker red color finished result but the taste and texture are the same. The benefit of this is that there is no boiling liquid splashing up and burning you. I also get tomato splatters all over my kitchen when I boil in a pot and the electric roasting pan avoids that. You also don’t need to stand there and stir constantly. We keep the lid off the roasting pan so the liquid is able to evaporate quickly.
- If you don’t have a food mill or sauce maker, remove the seeds from the tomatoes prior to roasting. Tomato seeds are so bitter and will ruin a finished sauce. Remove the skins after roasting and use a blender or food processor instead to get a super smooth finished ketchup for canning.
FAQ
No. The seeds are so bitter it will ruin the ketchup. The skins even after blending well are still present. I find the texture very off putting, however, I do have a few family members that don’t seem to mind it. So whether or not you add the skins is a personal choice.
No, it’s not necessary. However, if you want the smooth texture that is characteristic of ketchup, blending it at the end makes a HUGE difference.
Ketchup for Canning
Equipment
- 1 Blender
Ingredients
- 2 teaspoons celery seeds
- 4 individual whole cloves no teaspoons or tablespoons just count them out
- 5 individual whole allspice
- 3 cups vinegar half white and half cider (5% acidity)
- 24 lbs tomatoes
- 3 cups chopped onions
- 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
- 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
- 2 cups granulated sugar
- 1/4 cup canning or pickling salt
- 1 tsp dried garlic
Instructions
- Turn oven to 425ºF
- Make a spice bag by taking cheesecloth and cutting out a square. Add celery seeds, cloves, and all spice on top of the cheese cloth, then tie in a knot or use twine to tie it together. (Some of the celery seeds may fall out, that’s ok!)
- In a stainless steel saucepan, add the vinegar and the spice bag. Bring to a boil over high heat, then remove from heat and let it sit for a half hour with the spice bag in it. Then discard the spice bag.
- Meanwhile, cut tomatoes in half and core. (For Roma or San Marzano tomatoes, no need to core, just cut in half.) Place tomatoes skin down, with one layer on baking trays and roast tomatoes for 1 hour at 425ºF.
- While the tomatoes cook, sauté the onions for 5-10 minutes on medium low heat until soft and translucent.
- After the tomatoes finish, use a food mill or sauce maker to remove skins and seeds. *Include all the released tomato juices on the tray as well as roasted tomatoes to food mill ensure proper acidity. Discard the seeds and skins.
- Place tomato sauce in a very large stainless steel saucepan.
- Add onions, sugar, salt, vinegar, cayenne pepper, black pepper, and dried garlic to the saucepan with the tomatoes.
- Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and let it simmer, stirring frequently, until it becomes the desired thickness.
- While reducing the liquid, prepare a water bath canner and half pint jars.
- Working in small batches, transfer the mixture to the blender and puree until very smooth. Return all the pureed ketchup to the pot.
- Ladle hot ketchup into half pint jars leaving a 1/2 inch of head space. Wipe rim. Center lid on the jar. Screw on the band with until it is finger tip-tight.
- Place jars in canner and ensure the jars have at least one inch of water above the tops of the jars.
- Bring to a boil and process for 15 minutes. Remove lid, turn off heat, wait 5-10 minutes then remove jars. Let cool and store.
There is one thing that should be noted: include all the juices from the roasting pan. It is necessary to maintain the acidity. The same thing goes if you are using tomatoes from the freezer. I learned that one from the canning group I belong to on Facebook which insists on tested recipes. 👍
Thank you! I’ll make sure to add that to the notes!
I’m so excited! I’m going to try your first recipe ever! All my plants this year are paste tomatoes because sauce making takes so long with others. I’m picky about my BBQ sauce, too. The only one I like is Quick and Easy BBQ sauce by Our Best Bites. I just make up a jar once a month or so, but I’m sure you could freeze it.
Yay! Hope you like it. Also thank you for telling me about another good BBQ sauce recipe! I’ll have to look that up!
It’s great!! I’ve tried the Ball recipe and I felt it was too spiced, but yours is just right. I cut the recipe in half and air fried some potatoes for taste testing. It’s a hit!
(My kids called the other recipe “pumpkin-spice ketchup” because it was so heavy on the cloves. 🤣 I never made it again. )
Hi Becky! I made this recipe last evening. It took me 4 hours of stirring to get the consistency that I desired, did you take this long? I have to say this is by far the best Ketchup recipe I have ever made. My adult son (35) said mom I think you just made Heinz Ketchup lol. Anyhow, thank you for sharing your recipe with us. I am looking forward to making more ketchup and my next to do is the peach BBQ.
Can these be canned in larger jars? I serve a high quantity of people and need to use more efficient (for our use) sized jars if possible.
Yes. Pint jars use the same processing time.
Best home made ketchup! Thank you!
So glad you liked it!
Hi Becky,
I’ve made this ketchup before using your “new” spice ratios. (after reading your post “Canning Recipes that Actually Taste Good”. I do not have a large garden so as my tomatoes ripen, I store them in the freezer until I get 24 lbs. Do you think I should still roast the tomatoes?
Also…did you saute the onions in advance?
Thanks so much for your time!
The roasting isn’t necessary but it does help thicken it and changes the flavor a bit. If you wanted to still have that roasted flavor, you could roast them then freeze. I saute the onions as I’m waiting for the tomatoes to roast.
Thanks so much for sharing your recipe. Just finished making a half batch and it is amazing. My tomato plants are looking a bit sad, but if they cooperate, I will definitely be making more!
Unsolicited advice/pro tip on making tomato sauce (and this ketchup) more quickly: when I roast the tomatoes in the oven, I pour off the juices a couple of times as they release from the tomatoes. These go into a sauce pan on the stove top to reduce while the tomatoes continue cooking in the oven. I also leave all of my skins and seeds on the tomatoes. You need a high powered blender to do this (Vitamix), but this is my secret to a truly thick sauce with minimal effort. I know you said seeds make the sauce bitter, but I haven’t found this to be the case when you have a blender that will actually blend the seeds so they disappear. After I remove the roasted tomatoes from the oven, I cool them and then they can go into the Vitamix or into the pot with the reduced juice (I let this get to near syrup consistency before adding the tomatoes) and then blend everything together. This method means no straining and no stirring a big pot of tomatoes on the stove top, splattering away. Once everything is blended, it’s ready to be canned. I was hesitant to spend the money on a Vitamix, but the hours and hours it has saved me on tomato sauce processing alone has made it worth every penny. Thanks again for sharing your adventures and all the great videos!
Has anyone tried this recipe and eliminated the sugar? Thank you for sharing!
can you use storebought can tomato sauce instead of fresh tomatoes
Yes you definitely can! Although, I don’t know how much- I’d have to make the recipe and measure out how much tomato sauce I get from 24lbs of tomatoes. Based on yield my guess is around 15-16 cups of tomato sauce is what you would need.
What to do if it does not thicken? I simmered for 5 hours and it was still watery.
If you keep simmering eventually it’s got to thicken. If you have no lid on the pot, the water has no choice but to evaporate. Another option is to put it in an oven safe pan with no lid on low heat… 200 degrees Fahrenheit for several hours (stir every hour). I’ve haven’t tested that so I can’t guarantee success, but I use the same method with apple butter and it works. The end product will be a bit darker but it’s a more hands off method than stirring ketchup in a pan.
I followed the recipe and only ended up with 5 1/2 pints. Any idea what I did wrong?
I used half pint jars. If you were using those instead of pints, it would be about 11 half pints yield which is much closer to what I got. Sometimes end yield does vary because of the water content of the tomatoes you use and how thick you like your ketchup. As long as you added all the ingredients, you didn’t do anything wrong!
If you wanted to make a tiny version of this with 1kg of tomatoes (I’m a household of one!)… how would you do it? Not sure how to divide some of these by 10!!