If you use the additive-free lifestyle app you’ll find that BBQ sauce often contains a lot of artificial additives with the main culprit being caramel colour and flavours, so we decided to make our own. It took quite a few times but we think we’ve mastered the perfect recipe.
Related recipe – sweet chilli sauce.
- 5m
- 30m
- 37m
Ingredients
- 2 tbsp. olive oil
- 1 brown onion
- 2 garlic clove
- 800 g tomatoes (fresh or tinned)
- 130 g brown or rapadura sugar
- 4 tbsp. worcestershire sauce
- 2 tbsp. sweet chilli sauce
- 4 tbsp. white or apple cider vinegar
- 1 tsp. ground cloves
- 1 tsp. ground nutmeg
- 1 tsp. minced ginger
- 30 g cornflour
Instructions
Thermal Cooking Method
- Chop onion into quarters and blitz onion and garlic for 3 seconds/speed 7. Then cook with olive oil for 3 minutes/100ºC/speed 2.
- Add everything else and cook for 10 minutes/steaming temp/speed 2 - MC off and simmering basket on top.
- Now cook for a further 5 minutes/90ºC/speed 1/MC off and simmering basket on top.
- Remove basket from the top and insert MC. Now puree the sauce, blitz for 30 - 40 seconds/speed 9. Increase the speed slowly. BE CAREFUL it will be hot!
- Now cook again for another 3 minutes/90ºC/speed 2 - MC off and simmering basket on top.
- Store in sterilised bottles for approx. 3 months (possibly longer) in the fridge otherwise freeze.
Traditional Cooking Method
- Finely dice onion and garlic and saute in a pot with olive oil until onion is translucent.
- Add everything else to the pot and cook on medium-high heat for 20 minutes until tomatoes have cooked down and reduced.
- Using a blender, blitz the sauce until smooth.
- Return sauce to the pot and cook again on medium-high heat for a further 5 minutes to reduce and thicken.
- Store in sterilised bottles for approx. 3 months (possibly longer) in the fridge otherwise freeze.
how do you make this tradionally?
Hi Vicky, you can do the same sort of thing over the stove. Finely dice (or grate) the onion then cook it off a bit. Add everything else and bring to the boil. Reduce to a simmer and stir lots, allow it to reduce a bit and thicken up. Cook for approx 15-20 mins. Then puree and bottle while still hot. Hope that helps :) Tracey
Regarding the sugar, would Raw sugar be o.k?
Yes it would be fine :)
We don’t eat sugar anymore so I can’t make the sweet chilli sauce. What would you substitute with instead? Also can you sub the cornflour with tapioca flour in this recipe?
Hi Katherine, you can leave out the sweet chilli sauce if you don’t want the sugar, or you could try making the sweet chilli sauce with coconut sugar or some other alternative. You can use tapioca in replace of corn flour. Cheers, Jo
Hi Ladies, loving the recipe! Just wondering Is there anything I can use besides cornflour to thicken it?
You could use arrowroot flour. Jo
Hi, have just been given a big box of fresh tomatoes, would I need to peel them for this sauce?
Hi Jaki,
No need to. You can, however, if you wish.
Shane
Could you please provide information regarding how long these items can be stored in the fridge for? As they are preservative free, I would imagine they would have a shorter shelf life. I really want to start making a lot of your recipes, but trying to figure out how to store everything best.
Hi Alyra, as a general rule of thumb you can store this BBQ sauce for approx 6 months. I store mine, in sterilised jars, in the bottom of my pantry, where it is cool and there is no direct sunlight. Once open it is in the fridge and used within a month. Each sauce is different, this doesn’t have a lot of sugar or vinegar, both of which are natural preservatives, so if a recipe has lots of either of these (at least half the ingredients) it should last years if in sterilised jars and stored correctly. Hope that helps :) Tracey
I wonder if I added smoked paprika and smoked the onion/ garlic and tomatoes in the Weber first it would give me a smokey flavor, and minus the sweet chili sauce.
Cooking experiment on the weekend I think.
Quite spicy compared to store bought BBQ sauce.
You could always reduce the amount of sweet chilli and worcestershire sauce to lessen the spice content if you wish.
Can I half the recipe and how long can I store it for? I think I will be making this because we go through lots of this (aka my husband).
You can halve the recipe or make the full recipe and then freeze the extras.
How do you get the sauce that brown? When I made it, it turned out bright red/orange