How To Make Tomato Ketchup At Home

One condiment that can be found on every table with almost every meal – from fast foods to even Indian staples like parathas – is the quintessential tomato ketchup. It is drizzled on burgers, sandwiches, patties, potato fries etc. and we can safely say that it is hard to imagine any of these without tomato ketchup. And while we keep on using tomato sauce and ketchup alternatively, they aren’t really the same. Yes, you read that right!

While we might call the tomato ketchup in our kitchen pantry as sauce, they are both quite different. First things first, ketchup may be a sauce but not all sauces are ketchups. Ketchup is cold and is never heated as a rule. Sauces, on the other hand, are used in cooking and generally served hot. Sauce is a universal word – it can be spaghetti sauce, barbeque sauce or a steak sauce.

(Also Read: Healthy Ketchup Alternatives: 3 Tomato Condiment Recipes That Will Make You Give Up Tomato Ketchup)

With this definition, what we generally use in our homes as a condiment is ketchup. Store-bought ketchup can be incredibly unhealthy with too much salt, sugar and unhealthy fats. But did you know you could make your own ketchup at home? Making tomato ketchup at home is a very easy task. We’ve got a super easy tomato ketchup recipe that you can try at home. In this recipe, tomatoes and garlic are cooked together, strained and cooked further with sugar, salt, garam masala, chilli powder and vinegar until thick. You can store in an airtight container and use it with whatever you like.

Sauce, unlike ketchup, is derived from Latin word salsas meaning “salted” and, serves the purpose of a cooking medium, meat tenderiser and help enhancing the flavours of any dish it is added to. Whereas, the word ketchup, is considered to have been originated from the Chinese word ‘koechiap’, which means “brine of fish”. Around the seventeenth century, it was related to a sauce that contained fish brine, herbs and spices as main ingredients. Later, the term was used to refer all the sauces with vinegar as one of the ingredients. Subsequently, it got associated with tomatoes and since then ‘ketchup’ started getting interchanged with ‘sauce’ in everyday spoken language. While both may be linked with each other, but they definitely do not mean the same thing.

So the next time you prepare a batch of fries at home, pair them with some fresh homemade tomato ketchup, not sauce!

Find the recipe of tomato ketchup here. Try it at home and let us know your experience ein the comments section below.