ketchup

I love spending time with family and feeding them well but sometimes it can be challenging to maintain healthy eating with visitors. Recently my niece spent a long weekend with us she and although she eats well when she is with us she has her own food preferences too. One being that she loves smothering her scrambled eggs with ketchup. I love a good healthy protein rich breakfast but starting it smothered with highly sugar based tomato sauce is not my idea of a breakfast of champions. Of course my son saw this fun new way of eating eggs and wanted to try as well. He is at the stage where everything is better with a dip and now routinely asks for ketchup with his breakfast.  I let it go for a few days but every time I grabbed the bottle and saw the second and third ingredients as variations of corn syrup I knew I had to create a better solution.

I started doing research and testing, this is what I came up with it takes just a few minutes of prep work and this rest it just simmers on the stove. You end up with a rich homemade ketchup full of tomato flavor sweetened naturally with honey and no extra added junk. It’s a condiment I feel good about giving to my family.

Homemade Ketchup

1 tablespoon coconut oil or butter

1 small onion, diced about ½ cup

1-2 cloves garlic, minced

1, 28oz jar tomato puree or crushed tomatoes

¼-1/2 cup honey, more depending on how sweet you like it

¼ cup white vinegar

½ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon pepper

¼ teaspoon ground allspice

Place oil or butter in a deep saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion and garlic and sauté for 3-5 minutes, until fragrant and slightly soft.

Add all remaining ingredients and bring to a boil.

Reduce heat to low and simmer uncovered for about 30 minutes until sauce has thickened and reduced almost by half.

Remove from heat, allow mixture to cool and blend with an immersion blender or carefully in a traditional blender. Note, do not put hot liquids in a traditional blender or it may explode. See here for more on avoiding blender explosions. Blend until smooth store in airtight glass container for best results and refrigerator for later use.

Makes about 2 cups, this sauce can also easily be doubled and frozen. To use thaw overnight in refrigerator.

Here is a tip for introducing this homemade ketchup to your store bought loving friends. Start by mixing half and half your favorite store bought ketchup with the new homemade ketchup and serving it in the same sore bought bottle. Allow them to get used to the new flavor and slowly increase the ratio of homemade ketchup over store bought until it is all the homemade ketchup version still serving it in the store bought bottle. Over time you can adjust their sense of tastes and ween them over the homemade ketchup version. Serving it in the store bought bottle helps with acceptance as the mind is a very powerful source what what we perceive in flavor. Over time you can serve it in a regular bootle or glass jar.

Looking for more like this stay in touch for more homemade condiments like Mustard, Mayonnaise and Barbecue Sauce.