Do you make your own BBQ sauce? I do.
I also make all my own salad dressings. There is nothing better than making all your own dressings and sauces because you know everything that's in them and you can always create the taste you want. With a little experience you get better and better at it and just know what goes with what and in what amounts. Ingredients with lack of artificial flavorings and preservatives plus the money you save are so worth it. Frankly, the better the cook you are, the more you make all your own dressings and sauces. You should make your own mayonnaise too (which is just an emulsion).
Here are the ingredients I put into my last homemade BBQ sauce:
tomato paste, apple cider vinegar, black strap molasses, honey, maple syrup, salt, cumin, dried chopped home grown Eisley peppers, Worcestershire sauce, natural unsweetened cacao, onion powder, garlic powder
You can start with store-bought tomato paste OR you can make your own. To make your own you have to have tomatoes...homegrown are best. The only real thing you need to know is making tomato paste takes time. If you use cherry tomatoes, it goes faster. You blend your tomatoes up then put that slurry into a pot to simmer on low. You have to be patient because it takes quite some time to make because the pectin in the skins has to cook out to cause the tomato slurry you started with to become tomato paste. Pectin is a fiber which thickens the sauce until it becomes as thick as you want. The longer you cook it, the thicker it becomes.
If you use store bought tomato paste put it in a sauce pan and warm it up to just simmering while stirring frequently so it doesn't stick and scorch. If you've made your own, it is already hot and ready to add the other ingredients. If you want a little bit of smokey flavor, you can let a little tomato paste scorch on the bottom of the pan, but you need to be careful doing this because it's easy to scorch too much which will ruin the flavor.
All the rest of the ingredients you add in amounts that make a taste you like. I typically make about a 2-3 cups of BBQ sauce at any given time. The amount of molasses I start with is 2 tablespoons. I also add 2 tablespoons of honey and 1 tablespoon of maple syrup. These three ingredients make the sauce stick to the stuff you BBQ and give it the sweet part of the flavor. Store bought BBQ sauce almost always uses high fructose corn syrup. Some use sugar. I'm here to tell you maple syrup, honey and molasses are so much better and taste great.
I put in 2 tablespoons of natural unsweetened cacao, 1 tablespoon of garlic powder, 2 tablespoons of onion powder and one tablespoon of powdered cumin. I tend to go low on salt, I use maybe 1 tablespoon. I start with 7 "glug glugs" of Worcestershire sauce out of the bottle (I assume that's about just under a tablespoon) then add more if needed.
I grow my own Eisley peppers which are a type of medium-hot wax peppers. Well, they start medium-hot. If you let them stay longer on the plant they get hotter. I pickle most of mine when they are yellow and about 2 to 2 1/2 inches long. Here's a picture of three quarts of pickled peppers I made just three weeks ago.
To make these, just rinse the peppers and place them in a mason jar. I add cauliflower and pearl onions. You can also add strips of red bell pepper, baby carrots and green beans if you like. Add 1 teaspoon of salt, pepper and minced garlic. I use the minced garlic I buy at the store in jars ready to go. Fill to the top with vinegar then close the lid and shake it all up. Every week you shake it up and turn it over then let it sit. Repeat this each week. One week the jars rest top down, the next week they rest bottom down. Super simple.
I let others stay on the plant until they turn red so as to be hotter. These I let dry in the sun then pulverize them in a coffee grinder (one I use only for spices). I add one teaspoon at a time until my BBQ sauce has just the right amount of zing. I don't have any red ones at the moment. Here's a picture of yellow ones.
The last thing I add is the apple cider vinegar to give it the right amount of sour to balance out the sweet things and the pungency of the spices. All of the things you add to the tomato paste are truly "to taste." I start with the amounts stated above but always add a dash more of this and that.
If you end up with BBQ sauce that is a bit too watery, simply make a rue with cornstarch in lukewarm water. Add this slowly and mix a lot until you have your BBQ sauce just the right consistency.
What you BBQing tonight. What do you want to kibitz about?
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Kitchen Table Kibitzing is a community series for those who wish to share part of the evening around a virtual kitchen table with kossacks who are caring and supportive of one another. So bring your stories, jokes, photos, funny pics, music, and interesting videos, as well as links—including quotations—to diaries, news stories, and books that you think this community would appreciate. Readers may notice that most who post diaries and comments in this series already know one another to some degree, but newcomers should not feel excluded. We welcome guests at our kitchen table, and hope to make some new friends as well.
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