A rich, fruity, slightly spicy blueberry barbecue sauce recipe I learned from my old Chef Lenny Russo when I was sous chef at his restaurant. It's easy to make at home and a great recipe for canning blueberries if you have excess. Chef liked it so much he used to serve it with French fries! Read on and I'll explain what you need to know.
Why This Blueberry Barbecue Sauce Recipe Is The Best
A lot of fruit barbecue sauce recipes include blackstrap molasses. While this might sound like a good idea since it's usually in regular barbecue sauce, it changes the flavor and fights with the fruit, making the sauce taste heavy.
Other ingredients like balsamic vinegar or smoked paprika are also too aggressive here and will cover up the taste of the blueberries. This sauce is fresh and clean tasting, highlighting the fresh blueberry flavor.
The spices are also important and need to be used judiciously. Instead of many different spices, I focus mainly on allspice in this recipe, along with a cinnamon stick that's discarded. Avoiding cloves and nutmeg help keep the sauce tasting bright and fresh.
How to Make Blueberry Barbecue Sauce
This is an easy recipe anyone can make with a saucepan and a blender. First you gently cook chopped shallot or onion, garlic and ginger until soft. Next, blueberries (fresh or frozen) are added, along with organic sugar.
Next the cinnamon stick, ground allspice and cayenne pepper are added.
Finally, red wine vinegar, red wine or ideally, homemade vinegar made from blueberries is added. The fruit mixture is cooked for about 20 minutes to evaporate some liquid, then pureed in a blender.
After pureeing the sauce can be stored in jars in the fridge, or processed in a water bath for long term storage in a pantry.
How to Use Blueberry BBQ Sauce
Serve the sauce as a condiment to grilled and roasted meats, especially grilled chicken, pork and venison. Use it to baste meats like ribs in the smoker or toss it with roasted chicken wings.
Think of it as a condiment you can spoon right from the jar on grilled pork tenderloin.
Related Posts
Blueberry Barbecue Sauce
Equipment
- 1 Two quart cooking pot
- blender or food processor
- Two 16 oz (2 cup) mason jars with lids
Ingredients
- 1.5 lbs blueberries roughly 5 cups of blueberries
- ½ cup brown sugar
- ½ cup apple cider vinegar
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 small shallot about 3oz, roughly chopped
- 2 tablespoons flavorless cooking oil
- 1 tablespoon minced ginger
- 1 tablespoons minced garlic
- ¼ teaspoon cayenne or hot chili sauce to taste (optional)
- 1 teaspoon ground allspice
- ½ teaspoon about ½ a whole nutmeg ground or grated nutmeg
- 1 two inch cinnamon stick
Instructions
- Add the oil to a 2 quart sauce pan with the shallots, or onion, garlic and ginger. Sweat the mixture for 2-3 minutes, or until the shallot is translucent.
- Add the remaining ingredients, bring to a simmer and cook on medium heat for 15-20 minutes. Remove the cinnamon stick and discard.
- Working carefully, puree the hot mixture in a blender until very smooth. Pour the barbecue sauce into two pint mason jars, seal, and process in a water bath for 10 minutes. Remove the jars and cool, label, date, and store in a pantry.
EC
While on your site the other day, I saw this recipe, and the picture you posted of Pork ribs with blueberry barbecue sauce. I looked for that recipe and did not find it. I literally wanted to reach through my computer screen and grab the ribs! Do you have a ribs recipe you used, and most important, is this sauce the sauce, and when does one add it to the ribs so as to not burn it. I know this recipe is an old post, so I hope you see this question. Thanks!
Alan Bergo
Hi EC yes this is the same sauce I'm using. Here's what I do with the ribs: Season them overnight with salt and a rub. You could use just salt and pepper, or you could use something like the tasso rub I use in this post, just a sprinkle is fine. Smoke the ribs for a few hours at 225 F, then wrap in parchment and smoke them for a few more hours until they can be flaked with a fork. The bones should not fall out from the ribs-you get docked in BBQ competitions for that, but they should be nice and tender. Finally yes, this is the sauce.
EC
Thanks SO much for the reply! When do you add the sauce so as to get it “cooked” onto the ribs, but not burn it?
Alan Bergo
In restaurants the ribs will be fully cooked and chilled. To serve, portion them into servings of a few bones, tyocially 1/3 or half a rack for pork ribs. Brush with the sauce or smear with a spoon and reheat in the oven until hot throughout. From here they can be served just like at a restaurant.
EC
THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!
Doc White
I do all of my smoking on a weber charcoal grill. I’ve recently found that using a whole chimney of lit coals poured against one side of grill runs temp at 350 degrees. I’ve been smoking ribs for 1 hour unwrapped, wrapping in foil for additional 1 hour, unwrapped and sauced for additional 20 minutes. Very slight chew off the bones, saves hours with same results. Extra 1/2 hour wrapped for fall off the bones. Just a thought.
Alan Bergo
Thanks Doc, I'm a big fan of wrapping meat in parchment in the oven and on the smoker. I'm usually smoking food casually (lazily) while I'm doing other things so I usually take my time. Lower temps will give you a wider margin of error too if you forget about things as I'm prone to doing.
Amy
love the burbon blueberry!
Would this work/be safe to can with a mixed berry?
Alan Bergo
Yes that will work fine.