Homemade Ketchup in the…you guessed it, the Instant Pot

Are you a gardner?  Do you always have so many tomatoes that you don’t know what to do with them all?  I mean, you can only make so much salsa and tomato sauce, am I right? You NEED to make this recipe!  You will never go back to store bought ketchup again!  I’m not a gardner.  I can’t even keep a cactus alive.  But after this recipe, I’m going to learn!  Who am I kidding?  I’m going to make my husband plant and take care of our tomato garden.

If you are not a gardner, like myself, this won’t be cost effective for you.  I mean, 6 pounds of tomatoes at the grocery store is expensive! I can’t remember exactly what I paid, but I believe it was nearly $15!  How many bottles of ketchup is that?  I don’t know.  Just like I don’t count calories, I don’t look at prices at the grocery store when I’m shopping.  I just pile in whatever I want into my shopping cart and praise Jesus that I can afford to do that.  Math is not my thing.  But I tell you what, it is worth every hard earned penny!  I will be paying high prices until my husband plants our tomato garden.  And my picky eater husband loves this ketchup too!  He refuses to use store bought now.  No lie.

Ingredients

• 6 pounds fresh tomatoes, quartered.  (I use Roma tomatoes, but you do you.)
• 1/2 c brown sugar
• 2/3 c distilled white vinegar (see, it’s not only used for cleaning! You can actually cook with this stuff too. Who’d a thunk it?)
• 1/4 tsp celery salt (I didn’t have celery salt so I used seasoned salt.  Close enough.)
• 1 tsp Worse sauce (Worcestershire sauce, but is there anyone who can really pronounce that word?)
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1/4 tsp mustard powder
• 3 cloves garlic, minced (Or a good squeeze from the garlic squeeze bottle. I ain’t got time to mince garlic, I got crafting to do!)
• 1/4 tsp red cayenne pepper (this is optional, but I highly recommend! It definitely enhances the flavor.)
• 2 tsp granulated onion
• 1/4 tsp black pepper
• 1-2 tsp salt
• 3/4 – 1 c water (this is so the tomatoes won’t burn in the instant pot.  I learned that the hard way.)

Preparation 

1. Add water and tomatoes to instant pot.
2. Pressure cook on high for 10 minutes.
3. Let it do a natural release for 15 minutes.  This means don’t touch it until you see that 15 minute timer.
4. Now you can quick release.
5. Blend with an immersion blender.  If you don’t have one of these, you can use a regular blender.
6. Strain with a fine mesh strainer.  (Don’t skip this step. You will be surprised at what is left behind.  And it makes for a much smoother consistency.)
7. Once all of it is strained, pour it back into the instant pot and press the saute button.
8. Add seasonings and reduce to desired consistency, stirring every so often.  (This is what takes the longest.  My saute button expires after 30 minutes so I had to turn it back on. I think it took nearly an hour before I deemed it good.)
9. Let cool and then add to a squeeze bottle.  You can use an old ketchup bottle, but I recommend using the condiment squeeze bottles that you can purchase on Amazon.  Then you can create your own label and slap it on the bottle. Claim that condiment!  I mean, you deserve the credit!  This is very time consuming but so very worth it!  It’s just that good.