Ketchup is one of those things I never imagined myself making. I’m so glad I decided to try. It turned out to be so easy and being able to control the ingredients in my food is very important to me. No chemicals, unpronounceable ingredients, and you can control the amount of sugar.
This is a pretty forgiving recipe, so feel free to adjust spices to your own liking. I do highly recommend using the fish sauce, if you can. It adds a depth of flavor you won’t get with any substitution.
Please see the note at the bottom regarding how to obtain whey. With the whey, this ketchup will last several months in the fridge. Without it, it will last about 2-3 weeks.
Makes 3 ¾ cups (60 tablespoons) homemade low carb ketchup.
The Preparation
- 21 ounces tomato paste
- 1/3 cup fish sauce
- 1/4 cup whey (from yogurt), optional
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
- 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/8 teaspoon paprika
- stevia/erythritol blend, to taste
The Execution
1. Put everything into a large container. This recipe is too large for my emulsion blender’s container, so I use a large mason jar. If you don’t have an emulsion blender, you can mix this in a blender.
2. Put emulsion blender all the way into container so that bottom of blender is resting on the bottom of the container. Turn on and blend for 30-60 seconds, moving blender up and down until fully blended.
3. Put ketchup in a glass container and put a lid on it. If using whey, let it sit on the counter for 3 days, then place in refrigerator. If not using whey, put ketchup directly into refrigerator.
How to Make Whey
Line a colander with several layers of cheesecloth or a piece of muslin. Place colander over bowl to contain whey. Take a small container of plain yogurt (cannot be flavored or sweetened) and put it into the colander. Cover and let sit for 2-3 hours. Return yogurt to container and use as you would Greek yogurt. Place whey in jar with lid and keep in refrigerator.
Keep in mind the macros below include the optional ¼ Cup of Whey.
This makes a total of 60 servings of Homemade LC Ketchup. Each serving comes out to be 9 calories, 0.1g fats, 1.6g net carbs, and 0.5g protein.
| NUTRITION | CALORIES | FAT | CARBS | FIBER | NET CARBS | PROTEIN |
| 21 ounce tomato paste | 488 | 2.8 | 112.6 | 24.4 | 88.2 | 25.7 |
| 1/3 cup fish sauce | 33 | 0 | 3.5 | 0 | 3.5 | 4.8 |
| 1/4 cup whey (from yogurt) | 7 | 0.1 | 1.3 | 0 | 1.3 | 0.2 |
| 1 teaspoon garlic powder | 10 | 0 | 2.3 | 0.3 | 2 | 0.5 |
| 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice | 3 | 0.1 | 0.7 | 0.2 | 0.5 | 0.1 |
| 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon | 2 | 0 | 0.5 | 0.4 | 0.2 | 0 |
| 1/8 teaspoon paprika | 1 | 0 | 0.2 | 0.1 | 0.1 | 0 |
| — stevia/erythritol blend | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Totals | 543 | 3.1 | 121 | 25.4 | 95.6 | 31.4 |
| Per Serving (/60) | 9 | 0.1 | 2 | 0.4 | 1.6 | 0.5 |
Homemade LC Ketchup
Ingredients
- 21 ounce tomato paste
- ⅓ cup fish sauce
- ¼ cup whey (from yogurt) optional
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- ½ teaspoon ground allspice
- ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ⅛ teaspoon paprika
- stevia/erythritol blend to taste
Instructions
- Put everything into a large container. This recipe is too large for my emulsion blender’s container, so I use a large mason jar. If you don’t have an emulsion blender, you can mix this in a blender.
- Put emulsion blender all the way into container so that bottom of blender is resting on the bottom of the container. Turn on and blend for 30-60 seconds, moving blender up and down until fully blended.
- Put ketchup in a glass container and put a lid on it. If using whey, let it sit on the counter for 3 days to ferment (and help develop flavors), then place in the refrigerator. If not using whey, put ketchup directly into the refrigerator. This can be used immediately if needed.
Your preamble indicates no sugar yet the recipe includes 1 tsp molasses. At 75g carbs/100g, molasses is basically sugar isn’t it?
Thank you for your inquiry. It is true; I did say one of the reasons to make your own ketchup is to avoid the addition of sugar. I did include the 1 teaspoon of molasses for a couple of reasons:
First, I think there are some health benefits found in molasses.
Second, I think the addition of molasses deepens the flavor of the ketchup.
In light of those reasons, I think the amount of molasses divided over the entire recipe is miniscule. In one teaspoon of molasses there are just under 5 carbs. In the entire recipe, there are 60 servings of 1 Tbsp each.
If you divide 5 carbs by 60 servings, you will get 0.08 carbs per serving. That’s not even 1/10 of a carb. You’d have to eat more than 10 Tablespoons to reach 1 carb of molasses. If you are concerned about the molasses, you can certainly leave it out. The fish sauce and spices still make it very delicious.
Hi guys,
I am going through all your recipes, cooking what I find interesting… and this one puzzled me a little. Mostly, the carb content.
English is not my first language, so I was wondering what fits under “tomato paste”. Basically, in my country there are “tomato pastes” (with carbs amount of 4-5g / 100g) and “tomato concentrates” (with carbs amount of 17g / 100g).
Looking at your nutrition data, it seems it should be indeed “tomato paste” – which is a little watery, so I wasn’t sure whether it would work as ketchup.
But seeing on the photo you are using bionaturae tomato paste, with net carbs 4g / 33g (so, 12g / 100g), and seeing the final consistency of the ketchup, I am wondering… what exactly should be used, and is the provided nutritional data indeed correct? 🙂 Could you advise me on this?
Hey,
Sure! Tomato paste here is very thick, not watery. The water stuff is called “tomato sauce” or “tomato puree” here. But the paste is like a thicker, dryer version of ketchup. The nutrition is correct (as per the data here) but I am not sure about your country – maybe they make it different? Some companies here add sugar and other products to their tomato paste, but we mostly use organic (no sugar added) tomato paste.
Hope that helps!
Which one did you use for the recipe? I’ll try to find an equivalent 🙂 The Bionaturae Tomato Paste (the one from the pic), seems to be higher in carbs than in the recipe (their website says of 4 net carbs / 33g). The recipe says of 4 net carbs / 100g of paste – that’s what puzzled me the most.
I am sorry, if I am somehow nitpicking your recipes – that’s definitely not my aim 🙂
This is one of Karen’s recipes, so I’m not 100% sure about the nutrition information. I’ll ask her about it later and have her reply to the comment. I normally use a local brand of tomato paste, myself. But I will have her double check the nutrition information that’s on the back of the packaging.
Well, I made it with my so-called tomato paste. It turned out definitely more like thick tomato juice. It’s not a bad thing, though, I will still eat the whole batch, as it’s delicious 😀 As for the thickness, I guess it indeed depends on the brand – I will check some more in future.
I also added some ground chilli flakes and black pepper, as well as 1 tbsp of vinegar (I love Heinz, which usually is pretty full of vinegar). No molasses sadly, but I countered it with sweetener (and my fish sauce is also 4g carbs / 100g, so I tried to keep it as LC as possible).
Thank you! 🙂
Awesome! If you think it is too thick, you could add some beef or chicken broth, or even water to thin it out a little 😉
ketonian,
You were right that the nutritional information was incorrect. It was based on one jar of sauce, rather than three. Thank you for pointing that out! I have corrected the data. I’m glad you were able to make a product that suits your taste! If you are not using the molasses or whey, you can deduct those carbs from the total (2.5g net carbs as opposed to almost 3). The recipe above makes 30 servings of 1 Tbs each.
I did see some discrepancy online as to the nutritional information for the Bionaturae tomato paste that I use. The one directly from their website matches what is on the jar sitting in front of me. Here is a link to that info: http://www.bionaturae.com/organic-paste-tomato-nutrition-facts.html
Ah, now it makes sense 😀
I made mine finally from the tomato purée (I think that’s how the more watery tomato paste is called – but it’s 3,6g net carbs / 100g, so I have that going for me) – and after mixing everything up I got even more LC ketchup/sauce than in the recipe 🙂
Awesome! Glad it turned out for you in the end 🙂
can the yogurt be from raw milk? also does it need to sit in the fridge or on the counter? what size container? like 6, 8 oz – about how much whey would this produce?
Raw milk yogurt is fine. That’s what I use. (In fact, you can use the whey from separating curds and whey from the raw milk) How much you make or what size container you use depends on how much whey you want to produce. For this recipe I call for 1/4 cup. To make that much whey, you probably need 8 oz of yogurt. You can strain the whey on the counter or in the fridge. You can use the whey to ferment many things.
Re: the ketchup. As it says in the recipe, I leave it on the counter for 3 days to ferment, then put it in the refrigerator. I usually give it a good stir before refrigerating. Hope this answers all of your questions!
~Karen
Here’s a tip for busy people…. So instead of trying this recipe, I found some unsweetened ketchup at whole foods. I bought it mainly for my husband who has really been missing his condiments since we started our standard ketogenic diet, but surprisingly it’s been mainly me using it so far. Thank goodness, and it only has 1g carb per TBSP! On it’s own, it tastes a little different than what I’m used to, but it’s close enough… and combined with mustard I can’t even tell the difference.
Whats the name of the Ketchup Nat ?
I think it may be sugar free Heinz ketchup, though I’m not 100% sure.
It tasted very Much like Tomato paste and Cinnamon! It Has a thick consistency and very paste like. Now I know that 90% of the recipe is tomato paste, but I expected it to taste better.
Is there anything I can do now to alter the taste?
You have a few recipes i’ve seen where you add whey. What are the health benefits of whey? and you typically have it as an optional ingredient so it doesn’t appear to be crucial to the overall result. Can you explain the pros and cons?
Randy
Many people prefer to culture their own whey and it can have added health benefits depending on what you use as culture. For the layman, it doesn’t make a huge difference and you can skip it if you please. It shouldn’t affect the recipe 🙂
Hi, what hidration you recommend to use on intense training, (per hour?) like triathlon and long distance, I don’t like gels or any of the high glucose carbs or drinks.
Also what will be more convenient to eat during training (replace the loss per hour)
Fat is extremely dense, so pretty much anything fatty that you feel you can eat. Drinks, fat bombs, or meals. It really depends on your style.
For hydration, I’d recommend something with electrolytes. Powerade Zero is good, but there’s concentrated liquids online that you can add in to water/whatever you prefer.
I don’t like fish, what else could I exchange for the fish sauce?