Do you know a kid who loves ketchup? I mean reaallly loves ketchup? Like puts it on everything, and I mean everything, loves ketchup?
I know a kid like that, and it’s not either one of mine! My son’s friend is one of those kids. Some of the things he’s been known to put ketchup on: pizza, deli sandwiches, meatballs, green beans, blueberry pancakes (barf!), carrots, apples, & basically any meat. I knew if ever there was a kid to be my ketchup taste-tester it was this kid. If he could like this ketchup I knew it would be good enough to post the recipe. Not gonna lie, I was pretty shocked that he liked it and took it as a total VICTORY!! My kids already thought it was great, but let’s face it…they’re mine & have been used to eating mommy’s concoctions for a while now. If this recipe was gong to be good enough to give you all, I needed “The Ketchup Kid” to like it 
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I’ve tried no less than 4 different recipes for homemade ketchup in the past. Each recipe ended the same way with my kids not liking it. We don’t really eat a lot of ketchup in my house anyway, but when we do, my kids eat a TON! Have you seen how much sugar the typical store-bought ketchup contains? It’s 4 grams of added sugar in every tablespoon! That means in every 1 tablespoon of ketchup a person is eating the equivalent of 1 sugar packet!
Think about how much sugar that is for some kids! It’s more than what I want my kids to eat. I wrote a post and included a video about what I called Sneaky Sugar. That’s the sugar that adds up over the course of a day that you consume without realizing it. Funny, I go back and reread this post and I don’t even buy any of those products anymore! I finally was able to rid my house of juice and I absolutely don’t buy gummy fruit anymore…even the organic kind. It’s funny to see how far my family has come just in the 3.5 years Dani & I have been writing this blog!
So what if there is no way that you are going to make your own ketchup. Are there better store brands out there? The answer is absolutely! You just need to look at the label to see the sugar content. I always make sure to have some Wildtree Organic Ketchup in my pantry in case I run out. Why do I like Widltree’s the best. Well for starters, there is only 1 gram of sugar in a serving. I have yet to find a ketchup anywhere that only has 1 gram of sugar in a serving. What I love about Wildtree is that we use just enough sugar to make the product taste good, not enough to get people hooked. If you have no clue what I mean about how sugar is addicting and how the food industry uses sugar to get us addicted to their foods, then I highly suggest you read my previous post here on how the food industry puts salt, sugar, and fat into our food to make us addicted. You will also get an easy recipe for granola bars too. Well worth the read if you don’t have time to read non-fiction books about health and nutrition like I do. So check out this label for Annie’s Organic Ketchup. See how there are 5 g of carb (sugar) in 1 tablespoons. If you are wondering why I am referring to the carbohydrate numbers and not the sugar numbers, then you can read this post on how to calculate the amount of sugar in a product. Since there is no fiber in the product, there is actually 1.25 teaspoons of sugar in a serving!
Now let’s take a look at Hunt’s ketchup. You can see that there are 5 grams of carbs or 1.25 teaspoons in each serving. Think about how much ketchup someone uses during a meal. See how fast it can add up? Also, you won’t see any “natural flavors” in Wildtree’s ketchup. I mean if it’s really so “natural” why don’t they tell us what the flavors are then?
Now let’s take a look at Wildtree’s Ketchup. See that? 1 gram of carbohydrate per serving. And look at those ingredients…all ones you would find in your pantry.
- 2 tbsp. coconut oil
- 1 medium onion, quartered
- 1 heaping tsp. garlic paste (can use minced garlic if you can't find it.)
- 26 oz. tomato puree (I used Pomi)
- ½ cup honey
- 1/3 cup white vinegar
- 6 oz. tomato paste
- ½ tsp. sea salt
- ¼ tsp. dried mustard
- ¼ tsp. black pepper
- 1/8 tsp. celery salt
- 1 ½ ground cloves
- 1 tbsp ground allspice
- Place oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat.
- Add onion & garlic paste, sauté until translucent.
- Add the remaining ingredients & bring mixture to a boil.
- Reduce heat to low & simmer, uncovered, until the sauce has thickened. This will take 30-45 minutes.
- Remove onions
- All mixture to cool to room temperature before placing in refrigerator.
- Freezes well!
- Can be make in the slow cooker.
- Place all ingredients in slow cooker & cook on low for 3 hours.
