First try at BBQ Sauce Recipe - with fresh tomatoes

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mfreel

Smoking Fanatic
Original poster
Sep 4, 2013
479
51
Omaha, Nebraska
BBQ Sauce Recipe

I posted this initially to figure out what to do with some extra tomatoes from the garden this year.  Here's my recipe and I'm really happy how it turned out.

Ingredients:

About 7 to 10 pounds of tomatoes (Not exactly sure how much they weighed, but I had about 5 quarts to start with)

2 cups chopped onions

3 cloves garlic (I'll go 5 next time)

Cut out the stems and any bad parts and quarter the tomatoes.  Add to a big pot along with the chopped onions and garlic.  Simmer for 30 minutes until the onions are translucent and soft.  

Use a strainer or sieve to remove all the stems, skins, seeds, etc.  You just want the pulp and the juice.

Add to the juice and pulp:

2 tsp coarse black pepper

1 1/2 cups brown sugar

2 T ground mustard

1 T paprika

1 tsp salt

1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

2 tsp Tabasco sauce

1/4 tsp ground allspice

1/2 cup molasses

1/4 cup apple cider vinegar

*** 2 T liquid smoke***

Simmer for about 4 hours or until it reaches the thickness you want.  

Once you reach the desired thickness and you're ready to can, add the 2 T liquid smoke.

Can in a water bath, fully submerged, for 30 minutes.

This recipe made just over 4 pints.

It was really interesting how the flavors changed throughout the 4 hours.  It started off pretty gross, but once it thickened, it had great sweetness and quite a bite from the cayenne.  Next time, I might cut back a little on the cayenne and Tabasco, but it really wasn't bad.

Simmering 30 min with tomatoes, onions and garlic


Getting the pulp and juice with the strainer


Cooking down 4 hours.  You can kinda see where I started


Final product.


I would think that if you wanted to use this as a starter, you could add various other ingredients like apples (maybe simmer along with the tomatoes) or mix in some root beer.  I would think some cherry chutney would mix in really well, too.  Of course, you could also add a little bourbon.

This was my first time, but I'm really pleased with the final result.  It's not smooth like store-bought.  This is the real thing and the tomato pulp really adds a nice texture.
 
Last edited:
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Reactions: disco
This sounds great. I have a bunch of tomatoes I was going to freeze. I may give this a try.

Thanks for posting.

Disco
 
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