Barbecue Sauce Tastes 10x Better When You Add This Tangy Fruit

Whether you rely on your tried and true 3-ingredient barbecue sauce recipe or typically have a bottle of Sweet Baby Ray's in the fridge, pretty much everyone knows that the best barbecue sauces have a little something "extra" in them. This secret ingredient not only makes the sauce unique to its maker but also increases the depth of flavor by making it just a little more complex. While there are a handful of ingredients that meet these qualifications (coffee, beer, pickle juice, etc.) there's one specific category of barbecue sauce enhancers that rarely misses: Fruit.

More specifically, whether you're upgrading store-bought barbecue sauce with sweet jam or making your own from scratch, blueberries are an excellent choice. Their flavor is distinct enough that it won't get lost in the sea of flavors, with the right balance of tart and sweet, ensuring they won't make the sauce sugary. It's also easy to enhance the flavor of blueberries with cardamom and other spices that enhance barbecue sauce, such as a pinch of cinnamon or allspice.

Additionally, blueberries' tanginess is the perfect foil for the deeper, richer flavors of liquid smoke, molasses, and hot paprika while simultaneously complementing acids like tomatoes, ketchup, and cider vinegar. When warmed, their sugars also gently caramelize into a fruity, jammy undertone that brings out the succulence in mild meats such as chicken or pork, or game meats like venison. However, that same gorgeous fruitiness may clash with rich red meats or delicate shrimp and fish, so experiment wisely.

Just like ordinary tomato-based barbecue sauce, there are hundreds of different recipes for infusing this cookout classic with tangy blueberries. You don't even have to make the sauce from scratch, as it's easy to infuse bottled barbecue sauces with fresh fruit or blueberry jam. When using jam, add a little at a time and taste as you go to avoid making the barbecue sauce overly sweet. Warming the upgraded sauce also helps marry the fruit and integrate it into the rich smokiness.

If using fresh fruit, gently crush and simmer the berries when putting your sauce together, as heat really is key to awakening and infusing all the flavors in your recipe. Scratch recipes also allow you the choice of using blueberries alone for the base of your sauce, or whether you'd like to use ketchup, tomato paste, or diced tomatoes along with the fruit. Barbecue sauce made with 100% berries as a base will naturally be sweeter and fruitier, so you'll need to pay close attention to savory and spicy ingredients to strike the right balance of sweet and savory.

When combining tomato-based ingredients with blueberries as your base, the challenge comes from making sure one doesn't overshadow the other, which can mainly be achieved with seasonings. Choose flavors that build a bridge between the two, such as cider vinegar instead of white, molasses or maple syrup, and warm spices like nutmeg, along with the expected spicy peppers, onions, and garlic.