How to Make Homemade Ketchup: Classic Ketchup Recipe

The original ketchup wasn’t made with tomatoes at all. Ketchup likely evolved from a Malaysian condiment similar to Indonesian kecap manis, a sweet, thick soy sauce that English colonists first tasted in the eighteenth century. Back home, the British developed their own takes on the sauce. Without soybeans, they used mushrooms, shallots, and anchovies to develop a variety of thick, brown condiments, including mushroom ketchup and Worcestershire sauce.

The British brought their mushroom ketchup to the Americas in the late eighteenth century, and by the early nineteenth century, Americans had developed tomato ketchup from the New World fruit. Farmers sold tomato ketchup as a value-added product, and in 1837 Jonas Yerkes became the first person to distribute bottled ketchup nationally. In the 1870s, Henry J. Heinz upped the sugar and vinegar levels of his namesake ketchup so that it could be mass-produced without the common preservative sodium benzoate, forever changing the sauce’s flavor profile.

Although the standard ketchup recipe has evolved over the decades, some of the most important ingredients include:

1. 1. Tomatoes: The very first tomato ketchup recipes called for fermenting fresh tomatoes. The fermented tomatoes were then passed through a food mill to form a smooth tomato sauce. Today’s bottled ketchup is generally made with tomato concentrate; for a more intense tomato flavor, add tomato paste to your homemade ketchup.
2. 2. Salt: Early on, salt was used as a preservative in homemade ketchup. Now, it’s mostly used for flavor.
3. 3. Vinegar: Most ketchup uses distilled white vinegar as a preservative. Apple cider vinegar is a popular choice for homemade ketchup.
4. 4. Sweetener: Most commercial ketchups are sweetened with high fructose corn syrup. Early ketchups were not sweetened at all: Heinz is largely responsible for the sweet flavor we associate with ketchup today. Homemade ketchup is usually sweetened with brown sugar or maple syrup.
5. 5. Fish: Anchovies were a traditional component of homemade ketchup. They remain in Worcestershire sauce but have largely disappeared from commercial tomato ketchup.
6. 6. Alliums: Early homemade ketchup recipes often called for shallots. Today, tomato ketchup is generally made with onion powder.
7. 7. Spices: Traditional ketchup spices include allspice, ginger, nutmeg, coriander, and black pepper.
8. 8. Alcohol: Some early ketchups were preserved with hard liquor, such as brandy—a trick that’s not common practice today.