Easy Roasted Ketchup Recipe (Version #2)

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Since I posted it a few years ago, my Easy Homemade Ketchup Recipe with Fresh Tomatoes has been one of my most popular articles. This roasted ketchup recipe is my new and improved version. Although it has the same basic ingredients, for this ketchup recipe the tomatoes are roasted rather than simmering in the crock pot.

We love the deeper flavor and thicker ketchup we get by doing it this way! Like the original recipe, this one is refined sugar free, corn syrup free and gluten free. It’s amazing on home grown fried potatoes or hash browns! It also makes a great base for barbeque sauce.

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Roasted Ketchup Ingredients

For my original ketchup recipe, I recommended using mainly paste tomatoes, such as romas. This is because they have less seeds and less water content, so they thicken a lot faster than slicing tomatoes. For this roasted ketchup recipe, however, it really doesn’t matter. The roasting does a great job at removing excess water, even from juicier slicing tomatoes. This year, my ketchup has about 20 different tomato varieties in it, but I went heavy on both the San Marzano paste tomatoes and the Black and Striped Brandywines. The wide tomato variety gave it fantastic flavor!

Agave syrup is my favorite sweetener for ketchup. Liquid sweeteners typically work the best. Agave is low glycemic index, meaning it doesn’t spike blood sugar like other sweeteners. It’s also mild flavored, compared to some other natural sweeteners. It does a good job of adding sweetness without distracting from the flavor of the tomatoes.

I grow my own onions and garlic for ketchup. The rest of the ingredients, including the agave and apple cider vinegar, I purchase from Azure Standard. Azure is a bulk foods co-op that delivers to most of the US. There are no membership fees and their own truck drivers deliver your order to your town for free. Our family’s been using Azure every month for 20 years! You can order the agave syrup, apple cider vinegar, fresh onions and garlic, and organic spices here!

Roasted Ketchup Recipe

8lbs of fresh tomatoes
2 medium onions
1 large bulb garlic
1 tsp cloves
1 tsp dry mustard
1/2 tsp allspice
1/2 tsp celery seed
3/4 tsp salt
1/2-1 cup agave nectar
3/4 cup apple cider vinegar

Directions:

Preheat your oven to 300°F. Wash and slice the tomatoes in half. You can scrape out the seeds if desired. Some will come out on their own during the roasting process. Place the tomatoes in a pan (or pans) with tall sides, such as a 9×13″ cake pan. It’s fine to pile them in there; they don’t need to be in a single layer.

Bake the tomatoes for 2 hours. The tomatoes should be a little darker colored on top with liquid and seeds separated in the bottom of the pan.

Pour the tomatoes through a colander or use a slotted spoon to remove them. Discard the liquid.

Puree the tomatoes in your blender, along with the other ingredients (you’ll need to do multiple batches in the blender if you are making the full recipe). Blend until smooth.

Heat the ketchup up in a pot on the stove. This cooks the other ingredients and blends the flavors. Taste and add more agave or vinegar if desired.

If you are freezing your ketchup, let it cool before pouring into containers.

For canning, ladle the hot ketchup into hot canning jars with 3/4″ head space. Wipe rims clean, screw on lids and process in a boiling water canner for 35 minutes (recommended times for pints at less than 1,000′ elevation).