If you’re a parent to young kids, I’m sure you’ve found yourself throwing away a few half eaten apples a day. If not, you’re lying. I had about 3 half eaten apples and I said, nope, not today. So I peeled them and chopped them up to use into a bbq sauce that turned out so wonderfully perfect and complex, it will be a BBQ necessity for chicken, veg and pork from now on.
Peel, core and chop 2-3 apples.
Add the apples to your saucepan with a bit of oil. Once heated, add your spices. You’ll need 1 Tbsp each of:
Cumin
Paprika
Garlic powder
Aleppo Pepper - you can use chili powder instead and it will taste very good, but if you ever want to try a new spice, Aleppo is sweet, smoky and tangy, it’s just so damn good.
Sautée your spices for 3-4 minutes with your apples on medium heat.
Deglaze with 2 tbsp of apple cider vinegar.
Next, add 1/4 cup of brown sugar and 3 tbsp of ketchup.
Mix together, add 1/4 cup of water and cook down until the apples are fork tender.
Sauces are universally better when made ahead, so let it cool, blitz it up and put it in the fridge until you’re ready to slather it on to your protein or vegetable of choice. This sauce will keep in an airtight container, in the fridge for about a month.
A cooking tip that’s important to remember with BBQ sauce is that the high sugar content will burn on your grill if you put it on too soon. Start searing/grilling first, once it’s about half way through cooking, this is when you start brushing your sauce onto it. Repeating and flipping a few times over helps the sugars caramelize.
This sauce is sweet, sour, tangy and only contains a hint of heat, its perfect for any palette.
Enjoy this one, I’d make this at the restaurant in a heartbeat.