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I harvested two buckets of tomato’s from my garden that needed to be used. I froze as many containers of tomato sauce as would fit into my freezer. Now what?
I decided to try lacto-fermented ketchup. That is a stretch for me. I have never made ketchup before and I didn’t have a recipe using fresh ingredients. I adapted one from Nourishing Traditions and my grandmothers old recipes.
I boiled a pot of water to remove the tomato skins. I put the skinless tomatoes in the blender and poured them into a large pot. They cooked all day and reduced to about 1/3 of the original amount. I added 1 cup of maple syrup, onion powder, and salt. After it cooled to room temperature, I added 1/4 cup of whey, poured into glass jars, and let them sit at room temperature for 48 hours before transferring to the refrigerator.
My kids actually ate it. Whew! They dipped their chicken in it, ate it with hamburgers, and put it on their fried potatoes. I also made Sloppy Joe’s with it and they loved it. I didn’t tell them it was ketchup. I called it Tomato Dipping Sauce. I didn’t want them to have ketchup in their mind when they tried it because this is not like our bottled ketchup. It reminded me of the ketchup in Europe. It actually tastes like tomatoes.
I also use this ketchup in Hamburger Rice and Beans.
Thanks for this recipe…the last of my lovely heirloom tomatoes are ripening now and I don’t want to can any more anything, so I thought I’d try the lacto-fermented ketchup. I got some fish sauce to use with the Nourishing Traditions recipe, but I wanted to use my fresh tomatoes, not paste from a can. I’ll see if I can use your recipe with the fish sauce and see how it works. I don’t usually have whey on hand and I do water kefir instead of dairy kefir too. I love the Tomato Dipping Sauce idea! We love ketchup here, it could almost be a meal in itself…well, except my husband doesn’t like it. Anyway, thanks again!
[...] absolute favorite is the fermented ketchup (or here) – I used tomato sauce we made (and froze) last summer from our own tomatoes, boiled [...]
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