Forget ketchup… This is better!

If you’ve ever wondered how to make tomato jam at home, this easy recipe shows you why it’s the secret sauce your burgers and breakfast sandwiches have been missing. Tomato jam is sweet, tangy, and savory — a homemade condiment recipe that’s better than ketchup and transforms everything from burgers to eggs.

In this video, I’ll show you how to make a small batch tomato jam recipe with just a couple of ripe tomatoes, then use it two ways: first on a mozzarella and basil burger, and then on an open-faced breakfast sandwich with pesto mayo, spinach, fried egg, and homegrown radishes. This is a recipe that carries you from dinner to breakfast — proof that sometimes the simplest ingredients make the biggest difference.

⏱️ Time Stamps

00:00 – Why tomato jam? (Season, sale tomatoes, resourcefulness)
01:31 – Making the tomato jam (onions, garlic, sugar, vinegar, spices)
03:01 – Historical spotlight: ketchup’s surprising origins
04:47 – Burger build: mozzarella, basil, and tomato jam
06:04 – Breakfast build: open-faced egg sandwich with pesto mayo & radishes
08:21 – Conclusion: the pioneering spirit of stretching ingredients

👉 Would you try tomato jam on breakfast, or keep it on burgers? Comment below and let me know.
👉 And if you want another flavor booster that changes everything, check out my garlic confit video next.

Summer’s winding down and there are literally tomatoes everywhere. I’ve got them coming out of my ears. In fact, this one just came out of my ear about two seconds ago. So, why am I buying these tomatoes at the grocery store? Well, I saw that they were on sale. These were nearing the end of their life. And I know that they’re just going to go into the into the waste bin if they don’t get purchased. And for the whole bag of tomatoes, it was a dollar. So, instead of wasting my winter supply, I’ve decided that I’m going to go ahead and use these for my day-to-day cooking and everything that I’m going to need. And this is what I came up with. [Music] So, I wanted to make something unique and burst, not just another jar of pasta sauce on the shelf. I think what I really wanted was a homemade gourmet burger topping that would also double for other types of meals. And I really just wanted to make food that was memorable more than anything. Most people grab ketchup without even thinking. But here’s the problem. It’s too one note, too familiar, and it comes in a plastic bottle. That’s the worst. Plus, most people don’t know what to do with a pile of tomatoes. But here’s the thing. I don’t even know if this is going to taste as good as I hoped. And is it really going to be worth the effort? Making tomato jam is so simple, and you don’t need a garden full of tomatoes to do it. I started with just two of these tomatoes that I bought at the grocery store. I popped them into some boiling water and then submerged them in ice water so that way the skins would peel off easily. I then cooked them down. I love using garlic comb feet in everything possible. And as you’ve seen if you’ve watched any of my other videos, I use it a lot. It’s kind of a constant cycle of making new garlic home feet at least every other week or so. [Music] Next comes the flavor base. Sugar for sweetness. I used brown sugar, vinegar for tang, and smoked paprika for depth. I also put a pinch of chili flakes in for just a little bit of heat. Once the tomato goes in, it doesn’t look like much at first, watery and thin, but give it time. The simmer drives off the liquid. The sugar caramelizes, and what started as scraps turns into something glossy and jammy. Stir it often and after about 20 minutes, it’s thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. That’s when you know it’s ready. Sweet, savory, tangy, and nothing like that one note ketchup that’s in the plastic bottle. You know what? That was totally worth all of the work I put into it. This is so much more than a spread. This is a flavor blast. It’s kind of like if barbecue sauce had a cousin that went to finishing school. Did you know that ketchup wasn’t even originally made with tomatoes? This wasn’t what ketchup was actually. It was from parts of Asia where they were making fermented fish sauce kind of like this stuff. Uh it’s supposed to be umami and complex and just delicious. But it was called ketup. I hope that’s how you pronounce it. Of course, ketchup cats up. That must be how you pronounce it. Kettzia. At least I hope. And in the 17th century, British sailors brought some of this wonderful ketap to Europe from Asia. And European cooks started to experiment and decide if this is the best way for their pallets to taste and use local ingredients for them. And so it evolved from that point. It took until the early 1800s before it arrived in America where American chefs decided to start doing the same thing that those European chefs did and really experiment with it. And because we had tomatoes in Mexico and then spreading throughout the United States, we had a glut of these tomatoes and we didn’t know what to do with them. So we started processing them into a form of ketchup before adding pound after pound after pound of sugar into this delicious ketchupy mess and then turned it into that thick delicious familiar very familiar flavor that we all know today. For this burger, I kept it simple so the tomato jam could really shine. I pan fried the patty. Grilling would have made it even better, but the point is is getting a good crust. While that finishes, I add mozzarella right on top so it melts down creamy. [Music] Then comes the star, a big spoonful of tomato jam. It’s sweet, tangy, sticky, and it cuts right through the richness of the beef and the cheese. And then to finish, a few fresh basil leaves that I grew in my hydroponic setup. Bright, peppery, and they tie it all together. Stack it up on a toasted bun, and that’s it. Juicy burger, melty mozzarella, basil, and jam that takes ketchup’s place forever. All right. So, this is that burger with the tomato jam and some basil and mozzarella. I have no doubts that this is going to be fantastic, but I’m going to make you watch me eat it anyway. That burger was so good. I almost stopped right there. But then I thought, what if the jam could do breakfast, too? All right, so we’re on to the second dish for that tomato jam, and we are going to be using that on this beautiful breakfast. What I’ve done is I’ve taken a piece of this toast that I pan grilled rather than using a toaster because I just feel like the taste is so much better. It doesn’t dry out the center as much and it just gets a little bit more crispiness, which is perfect. I can also see it, which is even better for me. Um, and then I to then I tossed on a little bit of pesto mayonnaise, just like a teaspoon of pesto. And then probably a/4 cup of mayonnaise. Mix that up really well. And then just spread that across that toast. And then we’re going to toss a little bit of this homegrown spinach on there. We tore that up so that way it would be delicious. And then top that with the fried egg, a little bit of that tomato jam, which was just beautiful to look at. And then we have some of these homegrown radishes. These are watermelon radishes as you can see that that really pretty look on there. It’s it’s bright red on the inside and it gets white on the outside. It’s beautiful, beautiful radish. And I’m really excited about this cuz I grew this in my greenhouse and it only took a few weeks. So radishes are like a 30-day time frame. So we are going to go ahead and try this. I think this tomato jam is going to really wake this whole thing up. All right. Oh my goodness. Now, I used to be a big fan of avocado toast, but I think this is going to win. A little bit of that tomato jam on top of anything a little bit salty or savory is going to really bring all of the flavors together. It’s going to give it a little bit of that really nice sour taste from that from that apple cider that we used in the tomato jam. And then it has a little bit of crunch from the radishes. A lot of softness and just a little bit of a little bit of the fat from the yolk, but also from that mayonnaise. And it really pulls it all together. It’s a quite a delicious dish. And I definitely think this is going to be one of those things that enters my rotation regularly. What did we learn today about tomatoes? So, we learned that the burger is so much better with this sauce than with ketchup. We also learned that that openf face sandwich is going to be delicious and you’re going to get so much cafe style breakfast flavor from it and it will carry you from then all the way through dinner. Don’t forget that one act of resourcefulness can lead to so many wonderful, memorable food memories for you and your family. And that’s the pioneering spirit that I want to keep alive. Taking what we have, stretching it, and making it so much bigger than it seems. And if you enjoyed this video, make sure that you click like and subscribe and check out this video about garlic coffee or this video about strawberry jam. I wonder why it’s always breakfast that’s so delicious, especially when you got ingredients that come fresh from your garden. And by the 18th to 19th century, we still weren’t seeing it made with ketchup.