Make Your Own Ketchup, Mustard, Mayo …

It's easy to make your own condiments!

Why spend a lot of money on condiments from the grocery store that are, in most cases, loaded with corn syrup, artificial flavors, and preservatives? It’s easy to make your own ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise, and more right at home with ingredients you probably already have. Here are a few simple recipes for these favorite kitchen staples:

Fresh homemade ketchup with ingredients for making.Top view with copy space.

Homemade Ketchup

Course condiment
Cuisine American

Ingredients
  

  • 28 oz. can of tomato purée
  • 1 medium  onion, chopped
  • 2 tablespoons  olive oil
  • 1 tablespoon  tomato paste
  • cup packed dark brown sugar
  • ½ cup  cider vinegar
  • ¼ teaspoon  ground allspice
  • ½ teaspoon  salt

Instructions
 

  • Blend tomatoes and purée in a blender until smooth.
  • In a heavy 4-quart saucepan, cook onion in oil over moderate heat, stirring, until softened (about 8 minutes).
  • Add puréed tomatoes, tomato paste, brown sugar, vinegar, allspice, and salt.
  • Simmer, uncovered, stirring frequently, until very thick (about an hour).
  • Blend mixture until smooth. Cover and chill for two hours before serving.
Keyword Homemade Ketchup, homemade ketchup recipe
Yellow mustard in glass bowl.

Homemade Yellow Mustard

Course condiment

Ingredients
  

  • ¼ cup ground mustard powder
  • 2 tablespoons whole mustard seed, crushed with a mortar and pestle
  • ¾ teaspoon salt​
  • ¼ cup water
  • 4 teaspoons apple cider vinegar
  • 1 teaspoon sugar

Instructions
 

  • Combine dry mustard and mustard seed, salt, and sugar in a bowl.
  • Whisk in wet ingredients until combined.
  • Pour into a container, cover, and keep refrigerated for 2 days before using. This step is important as mustard needs to mellow for a bit, and it will thicken up. Mustard will keep in the refrigerator for at least 4 months.
  • Feel free to add a tablespoon of horseradish, garlic powder, or tarragon to the finished product for added flavor!
Keyword yellow mustard seeds, yellow mustard seeds uses
Homemade mayonnaise on wooden board with eggs in background.

Homemade Mayonnaise

Course condiment

Ingredients
  

  • 2 egg yolks
  • ¾ teaspoon salt
  • ½ teaspoon powdered mustard
  • teaspoon sugar
  • 4 to 5 teaspoons lemon juice or white vinegar
  • cups olive or other salad oil
  • 4 teaspoons hot water
  • 1 pinch cayenne pepper

Instructions
 

  • In a small bowl, beat together egg yolks, salt, mustard, sugar, pepper, and 1 teaspoon lemon juice, until very thick and pale yellow.
  • Add 1/4 cup oil, drop by drop, beating vigorously.
  • Beat in 1 teaspoon each of lemon juice and hot water.
  • Add another 1/4 cup oil, a few drops at a time, beating vigorously.
  • Beat in another teaspoon each lemon juice and water.
  • Add 1/2 cup oil in a fine steady stream, beating continuously, then mix in remaining lemon juice, water, and oil.
  • Cover and refrigerate.
Keyword basic mayonnaise recipe, homemade mayonnaise olive oil

Chipotle Sauce

Course condiment
Cuisine American

Ingredients
  

  • 1 cup mayonnaise
  • ½ ounce mustard
  • ½ ounce freshly squeezed lime juice
  • 1 ounce chipotle chili in adobo sauce, chopped finely
  • ¼ ounce fresh garlic, minced
  • salt to taste

Instructions
 

  • Combine mayonnaise, mustard, lime juice, chipotles, and garlic in the bowl of a food processor.
  • Purée until fully combined.
  • Add salt to taste.
  • Cover and refrigerate.
Keyword chipotle mayo recipe, chipotle sauce recipe

Farmers' Almanac - Itch
Jaime McLeod

Jaime McLeod is a longtime journalist who has written for a wide variety of newspapers, magazines, and websites, including MTV.com. She enjoys the outdoors, growing and eating organic food, and is interested in all aspects of natural wellness.

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D. Smith

I do not know a lot about mexican foods and condiments, so please excuse my ignorance here. We just don’t have a lot of that kind of food here where I live. I grew up eating scandinavian foods, mostly!

What is chipotle in adobo sauce? Is this something that comes in a jar as a whole pepper in brine or something? I don’t even think my grocery stores carry things like that but I guess I could look and ask.

What is chipotle used for otherwise? Is it terribly hot (spicy)??

P Elbravo

Adobo is a thick liquid like seasoning sauce used for stewing meats or as a marinade for grilling meats. It is made with paprika, garlic,onion and other mexican spices. Alone it is spicy but not hot, with a tangy sweet flavor.With chipotle, heat is added to the spiciness. Depending on the amount and heat of the individual chipotle peppers used, It can vary from 2500 to 8000 scoville units.
Chipotle peppers are Jalapeno that have been ripened to maturity then dried and smoked.The obvious difference in the raw pepper is the red instead of green color on the mature jalapeño or chipotle.
You can find online if your store doesn’t carry them.

Sally D

Thank you so much for these homemade recipes!

Brittany

[email protected]

I don’t have a blender, how else can I puree for the ketchup recipe? I’ve been wanting to make homemade ketchup for a while.

Susan Higgins

Hi Brittany, do you have an immersion blender? Otherwise, you can cook and strain similar to the way you’d make applesauce, pressing through a sieve.

Amy

Stevefah,

Sucralose is commercial sugar that has been treated with chlorene.

Amy

Julie, the vinegar “cooks” the egg (at least chemically speaking), so no worries.

Amy

jeannine, Xanthan Gum is better to use in mayo than guar. Guar is used in commercial ketchups and so your “mayo” would be a runny dressing. Also agave syrup or molasses would be probably your better bet than stevia as stevia leaves a noticable aftertaste not normally found on sandwiches or fried foods.

jeannine

I wonder if I can use guar gum to thicken instead of raw egg and stevia powder instead of brown sugar. I would use olive oil or grapeseed oil. With all the controversy over oils like veg/canola/soy, with weight,cancer, digestive and GMO issues, I want to stay away from it.

Julie

is the mayo safe with raw egg?

Beckie

Excellent! Thank you for the post! How long will the Mayo last, in the fridge?

Jaime McLeod

Beckie,
A few weeks in a sealed container.

Angel

Yay! Bless you dear lady!!

Nita Garcia

Oh thank you so much. With my illness I have had to cut out alot of store bought stuff because of the extra junk they put in it. Now I can make my own and now I can have homemade BBQ sauce again cause I will have homemade ketchup and mustard

Kristen

‘@Jimz – Best comment ever.

Jimz

Real tomato ketchup Eddie?

Victoria Clemmons

Can I use garden-fresh tomatoes instead of canned tomatoes? If so, how much? I’d like to use various colored (yellow, black, ripe green, orange, white, etc.) tomatoes for a variety of ketchups.

Jaime McLeod

You certainly can, Victoria. You’ll just need to cut them up and drain the water out of the tomatoes. Do that until you have 28-oz. worth. You may need to experiment a little until you get the consistency right.

clavis panax

i can make Homemade Mayonnaise, but i didn’t never made the others, thanks a lot

James

Sounds like fun. Too bad I would spend more on the ingredients than on a bottle of ketchup.

trphzrd

so, in an article about making your own condiments, such as mustard, dijon mustard is included as an ingredient? how about a recipe for that too?

Diana

What is nice about recipes given by others is you can add your own twist to make the taste change to suit yourself by altering the ingredients a little or a lot.

I personally wouldn’t add mustard to my Chipotle Sauce because I react mustard sometimes by getting an upset stomach. Others may love mustard and add more.

Thanks for the post.

Nancy Rose

Making ketchup was on my list. thanks for the recipe. If a previous comment is accurate, too bad it doesn’t last longer than a few weeks.

Harvey Pincis

Hi all! Even before I took up gardening as a hobby, homemade horseradish and tartare sauce have been mainstays. As for processing, I doubt, though could be wrong. Avoiding preservatives and using such materials as real eggs and real cream, shelf life is necessarily short. Pickles are a different story, especially when made with vine leaves and sea salt to avoid ‘bloom’.

Charjoyful

I make great mayo in the blender. I quit using sweetners or sugar. Do not use Olive Oil. it is toooo strong… Just use grapeseed oil or corn or carnola oil. Got the recipe from Diet Center! Thanks for the ketchup recipie. Always wanted to try this. Happy Cooking! Charjoyful…

Stevefah

You can use sucralose (Splenda, etc.) in place of sugar; there are products that are also similar to brown sugar with half or less the sugar of commercial brown sugar… I have found few reasons to use ANY added salt in cooking. (After a while, you get weaned off your dependence.) You can get your daily minimum allowance from sodium already in non-processed foods, pretty much.

D.

Original recipes for ketsup also contain just a very small pinch of cloves and allspice. I don’t know why they stopped making it that way, but my guess would be they just decided to use sugar instead. Whenever my DH and I are invited out and end up using store-purchased condiments, the first thing both of us can taste is the sugary sweetness in these products. Gross. I can’t stand sweet ketsup.

Here’s my easy recipe for ketsup. It lasts about 6 weeks in the fridge. I’ve had no problem with it.

EASY HOMEMADE KETSUP
-6 ounce can tomato paste (find organic, if possible, or use homemade)
-1/4 to 1/3 cup tap water (depending on desired consistency, I like it with 1/3 cup)
-2 tablespoons vinegar (raw)
-1/4 teaspoon dry mustard
-1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
-1/4 teaspoon gray or celtic sea salt
-1 pinch cloves
-1 pinch allspice
-1 pinch cayenne pepper
-1/4 cup brown sugar, or less (you can also use molasses if you wish)

This is simplicity itself. In a medium bowl combine all of the ingredients with a wire whisk. Blend well. Scrape the mixture into a pint-sized, resealable container. Chill overnight, to blend the flavors.

Frutero

This is a treasure! I am saving it!

Horseradish sauce:
Take main horseradish root from this summer’s growth (it will get bitter if left another year), leaving side roots for next crop. For medium to large root, Moulinex with one to two kitchen tablespoons cider vinegar. Place in jar in fridge overnight; if root is not at least as moist as freshly-watered potting soil, stir in more vinegar until it is.

Next day, prepare chantilly base. For average root, that is 8 oz sour cream + 8 oz mayonnaise (if not homemade, Duke’s). Mix thoroughly with horseradish. Jar and refrigerate. Excites potato salads and the crowning touch for queenly roast beef.

Jaime McLeod

Ooh, I LOVE horseradish mayo. I’ll be adding this one to my own recipe file. Thanks!

Jaime McLeod

Hi Brad,
Unless you can them in a water bath, as suggested by the previous commenter, only a few weeks. Unlike commercial brands, these do not contain preservatives.

Brad

These sound GREAT, but do you know how long these recipes can be stored in the fridge, as compared to commercial brands?

Jaime McLeod

Yes, you should be able to can the ketchup and mustard, because they are both highly acidic. I would avoid canning the mayonnaise or chipotle sauce, though. Make only enough to use within a couple of weeks.

Mary Such

Can the ketchup, mustard recipes be processed? (As in a hot water canning bath)

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