Easy to Create Ketchup
Easy to Create Ketchup
Equipment
- Container
- Measuring Equipment
Ingredients
- 80 Grams Tomato Paste (3 oz)
- 3 Tablespoons Vinegar
- 1 Tablespoon Extra Virgin Olive Oil
- ½ Teaspoon Salt
- ½ Teaspoon Black Pepper
- 1 Tablespoon Oregano
Instructions
- Mix all the ingredients together.
- Stir well to blend.
- Can be stored up to a week in the refrigerator.
Ketchup; Sins of the Condiment
If you follow our page, you will certainly know that we embrace a low-carb lifestyle. Sugar has its place in our lives; on the occasional dessert. Sugar doesn’t belong in your condiments, like ketchup. This is something we feel really strongly about.
The sugar content in condiments blindsides most people, and greatly detracts the benefits from healthy lifestyle choices. It’s just a fact of life that people tend to overlook the condiments they use everyday. These things can and will totally derail someone trying to lose weight.
It’s not just ketchup you have to be weary of. It’s all condiments. A sugar laced salad dressing will ruin what a healthy salad can do for you. Check out our Super Simple Salad Dress recipe, which is also carb-free/sugar-free.
Why this recipe?
I have had a long love affair with ketchup. Every since I was little, I have drowned almost any and all meat products with it. Forget mustard on a hotdog. I like to lather mine up with ketchup. I’ll never forget the first time I had homemade ketchup in Germany. That really opened my eyes to how poorly made something like Heinz is. It also made me strive for something better, condiment related, in my life. Heinz is still one of my guilty pleasures.
I do admit that I sometimes still buy the occasional bottle of Heinz ketchup. We I say occasionally, I mean I might purchase a bottle a year. For someone that used to consume a bottle a week, that’s a huge change. Because our lifestyle is mostly carb-free, we don’t have many opportunities to use Heinz. Which means it takes up valuable space in my refrigerator.
Making real ketchup, like the ones I ate in Germany, do take a lot of time, require some time over a stove top, and sadly don’t keep for more than a few weeks. In short, they take too much time and aren’t around long enough to fully benefit from. That’s why I created this recipe. What’s great about this one is that it:
- is super fast to throw together
- doesn’t take many ingredients
- doesn’t require any cooking
- is easy to create a small quantity, like for a single meal
Fair warning: Don’t expect a taste that is going to match Heinz. It’s going to be a little different. Mainly, you’re going to realize how sweet American ketchup is.
Getting The Right Ingredients
The one thing you don’t want to cheap out on here is the salt. A quality salt is going to shine through and could make or break the taste.
If you’re in Japan, break out that Mother Salt (マザーソルト) Japan.
That can be hard to find in the US. Trying going for Maldon Sea Salt (Amazon US).
I also really liked Jane’s Krazy Mixed up Garlic in this combination (check our review).
If you don’t have the mixed up garlic, the mixed up salt will also work well. You can read our review for Jane’s Krazy Mixed up Salt here.
Olive oil, in practical, really imparts some nice flavor notes here. Replacing it with a different type of oil is not advised. As always, only use Extra Virgin Olive Oil. I hate to sound like a broken record, but it seems like this is a point that always has to be made.
I’m a lot less disconcerting with the vinegar I use. I typically reach for organic apple cider vinegar, but a standard white vinegar will work fine. Feel free to experiment a little in this area, as I feel you can really get some interesting results with different vinegars. For example, a smoke balsamic might really create something unique.
On a last note, if you want to add some heat to your ketchup, trying adding in some red pepper corns or ground chilly. The red pepper corns bring a nice flavor and heat to most things tomato based. Two teaspoons should be enough for more people.
Ok, maybe this song has nothing to do with ketchup, but I can’t think of a way to end this sentence.