I had been looking for a good barbecue sauce recipe for a long time. This sauce is pretty good. I wanted a tomato-based sauce that I could make from my own garden and for the most part I found it. I did end up using one canned ingredient, because I had used up half the can two months ago and the rest was in my freezer…chipotle peppers in adobo sauce.
I wanted my sauce to be very sweet and reasonably spicy. As I was cooking the recipe I found in the Ball Blue Book (1987 edition) I could taste that it wasn’t going to be NEARLY as sweet as I wanted, so in addition to the 1/2 cup brown sugar I added a heaping half cup of molasses as well. If I were going to make this again tomorrow I would jump right in with 3/4 or more.
Then again, I think if I really wanted this to be sweeter I would have to start with a sauce with less tomatoes in it. The last thing I wanted to do was to put in corn syrup. Yuck!
My biggest concern as I was cooking this was that it was going to be CRAZY spicy. There was a time while I was cooking it that I thought I had ruined it with the chipotles. After processing and opening a jar and having it on some ribs yesterday I was pleasantly surprised at how much the spiciness had settled down.
The usual disclaimer about canning at your own risk applies here. I am 100% sure that this modified recipe is a safe recipe, but I know that I have used acidic tomatoes and quality vinegar, and that all substitutions were done with like-quantities of similarly p.h.’ed items.
Give this a try and let me know what you think.
- My garden: tomatoes, bell peppers
- Local: onions, molasses, garlic
- The store: celery, brown sugar, dry mustard, paprika, salt, peppercorns, vinegar, canned chipotle peppers in adobo sauce
Posted by Margot Tenenchop on September 7, 2010 at 1:51 pm
I really love your recipe card format – and the fact that there are good ingredients in this sauce! Jimmy, I think we’re going to have to blog friends!
Posted by Annie's Granny on February 21, 2011 at 10:06 pm
I took the coward’s way out with my barbecue sauce last fall. I started with the Ball Blue Book Recipe (new book), which tasted just like ketchup. I grabbed a big bottle of Sweet Baby Ray’s and dumped it in. It’s not bad! This year I’ll have to do more experimenting, with additional brown sugar and molasses, like you did.
Posted by Jimmy Cracked-Corn on February 23, 2011 at 8:16 am
Ha! The coward’s way! LOL. If you only knew how many times I have made home-mixed barbecue sauce by bringing out every condiment in the fridge and mixing them together you would run away from my blog screaming!