This easy homemade tomato chutney recipe with onions, garlic, and a few flavoring inspirations makes a savory, vegan, and versatile tomato condiment.
Unlike marinara dipping sauce with canned tomatoes, this tomato chutney recipe uses fresh tomatoes but skips the roasting we like for smoky tomato salsa molcajete.
Table of Contents
Recipe Highlights
- Tomato chutney is best if you can find nice red, ripe tomatoes. If you are fortunate to have a garden or a good farmer’s market, tomato season might well be chutney season.
- This sweet tomato chutney recipe is more like chunky herbed ketchup than the kind of spicy chutney loaded with red chilies that you'd find in an Indian restaurant.
- There's no long list of ingredients. In fact, this simple tomato chutney doesn't require a dry spice.
Recipe Ingredients
Tomatoes. Fresh, ripe tomatoes are a hallmark of tomato chutney. Roma tomatoes or other tomatoes that don't have a lot of seeds are easier to work with.
Garlic. Use ½ a teaspoon of garlic powder if you don't have fresh garlic.
Mustard. A hearty, grainy mustard (stone ground) is tasty here. Or use a teaspoon of mustard powder or yellow mustard seeds.
Rice vinegar. Rice vinegar has a sweet, mellow flavor. Apple cider vinegar or white wine vinegar are the best substitutes. Red wine vinegar will give the chutney a deeper red color but a good flavor.
Maple syrup. My favorite substitute is date paste, but you can also use date or coconut sugar.
Please see the recipe card at the bottom of this post for the complete list of ingredients with measurements plus recipe instructions.
Recipe Variations
Add hearty fresh herbs or dry herbs such as bay leaf, rosemary, thyme, or oregano at the beginning of cooking if desired. Add delicate herbs like basil, parsley, or dill at the end of cooking.
If using dry basil for this recipe, add it to the tomatoes. Dry herbs are more concentrated than fresh, so follow a 3:1 (fresh: dry) rule. For this recipe, I’d suggest adding 1 ½ tablespoons to start with and then adjusting up.
Step-by-Step Instructions
Step 1: Cut the tomatoes into quarters. Run the blade of a sharp knife through the middle to remove the core and seeds. Then, dice the tomatoes.
Step 2: Cook the onions, then add the garlic and tomatoes.
Step 3: Add the remaining ingredients (except the basil). Cover and simmer on low heat for 45 minutes or until the chutney is thick and reduced by about half.
Step 4: Add chopped fresh basil.
Pro Tips
The longer you simmer, the thicker the chutney gets. And once you let it cool to room temperature, it gets a little thicker yet.
Add all or part of the chutney to a food processor and puree it. That's more ketchup than chutney. If it's a little thin, return it to the pot and simmer some more.
Serving Suggestions
Chutney is excellent as a spread with your favorite vegan burger recipes or with vegan bacon sandwiches. Smother chutney over potatoes or veggie pakoras. It also makes a delicious dipping sauce for crispy parmesan cauliflower or a great addition to a quick hummus wrap.
Frequently Asked Questions
If you use cherry tomatoes to make chutney, you only need to slice the tomatoes into quarters and simmer them with the rest of the ingredients. You won’t be able to deseed them, so there may be a few seeds in the final product, but it will still be yummy.
If you don’t want chutney with onions and/or garlic, leave them out. In place of the onions, you could use shallots or red onions. For a more subtle onion or garlic flavor, use ½ a teaspoon of onion powder or garlic powder. If you leave the garlic out, consider adding ½ a teaspoon of black pepper.
If red, ripe tomatoes aren’t available, don’t allow this to stand between you and tomato chutney. Canned tomatoes can be used for this easy recipe (4 cups). Be sure to drain them. Otherwise, your chutney may be a bit too thin.
Place unused chutney in a jar with a lid or an airtight container. Keep it in the refrigerator for a week. Because it would add too much moisture and diminish the flavor, it isn't advisable that you freeze fresh chutney.
Related Recipes
Do you have a question or recipe request or need a cooking tip? Leave a comment below or contact Denise. I’m here to help! If you want more healthy vegan recipes, please subscribe to my newsletter or follow me on Facebook or Pinterest for the latest updates.
If you make this recipe, please leave a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ rating. It’s much appreciated!
👩🏻🍳 Recipe
Easy Homemade Tomato Chutney
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Ingredients
- ¾ cup onion - finely minced, 1 small onion
- 3 cloves garlic - minced
- 4 cups roma tomatoes - deseeded and diced, 10 roma tomatoes
- 1 tablespoon stone ground mustard - the grainy kind
- 1 teaspoon maple syrup - or date paste
- ½ cup rice wine vinegar
- ¼ cup basil - chopped
Instructions
- Deseed the tomatoes by cutting them in quarters and then cutting out the core. Dice the tomatoes into small pieces.
- Heat a heavy-bottomed saucepan and over medium heat. Add the onions and sauté them until they become soft and slightly translucent (about 5 minutes). Stir the onions constantly. Add water a tablespoon at a time if they begin to stick.
- Stir in the garlic and mix it with the onions, then add the tomatoes, mustard, maple syrup, and rice vinegar. Mix the ingredients and bring them to a slow simmer.
- Cover them, and simmer until the tomatoes are reduced and the chutney is thick. This will take at least 45 minutes. Stir the chutney occasionally to test the consistency.
- Once the chutney has reduced, remove it from the heat and let it cool a little before mixing in the chopped basil.
- Serve warm or cool.
- Store in a sealed container. Keeps for a week in the fridge.
Notes
- The number of tomatoes you’ll need to make 4 cups of deseeded and diced depends on the size and type of tomatoes. 10 good-sized Roma tomatoes are a good starting point. You can always adjust the rest of the ingredients once the tomatoes are prepped.
- This recipe makes about 2 cups of chutney, depending on how much you reduce the tomatoes.
- If you want a smoother chutney, remove part or all the reduced tomatoes and puree it in a food processor or blender. Do this before or after you mix in the basil.
- You can use canned cherry tomatoes for this recipe. Drain them first so the chutney isn’t too watery.
Nutrition
Nutritional information is an estimation only.
Marlena
Hello!
This looks like a great recipe! Just have a few questions:
1. Do you dry saute the onions, or just saute the onions with oil?
2. Can you use granulated sugar for this recipe instead of agave syrup?
Thanks!
Denise
Hi, the onions are dry fried. Be sure you heat the pan first (that helps keep them from sticking). Use date sugar, date paste, or maple in place of the agave syrup. Sorry, I've been updating recipes to reflect less processed foods, so agave is going off the list. Cheers!