After making Chuck’s BBQ Sauce a couple of times, I was emboldened to make my own with tasty, winter holiday ingredients. This sauce is sweet, spicy, tangy and absolutely delicious. It goes GREAT on ribs, but will probably be amazing on chicken and anything else. This sauce takes time, patience and a blender.

Ingredients:
1 large onion, sliced thin
10 or so fresh cranberries
3 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
3/4 cup ketchup
1/2 cup apple cider
3 chipotles in adobo sauce, chopped (or less if you don’t like it spicy, but you definitely want to add some for the smokiness)
1 tb maple syrup
1 tb soy sauce
1 tb white vinegar
1 tsp ground mustard
1 tb bacon grease, or vegetable oil

Makes roughly 1.5 cups

Let’s do it!

1. Add bacon grease to a saucepan and heat on medium-low. Add onions and fry until very very soft and caramelized. They’ll be a soft, light brown mess. This may take about 20 minutes. Make sure to stir and don’t let them burn!
2. Add garlic and cranberries and stir until the cranberries split open.
3. Add everything else and simmer, covered, for about 20 minutes until it all melds together.
4. Taste it. You’ll want it to be a nice, full, balanced flavour. If it seems bland, add more soy sauce. If you’d like it to be a bit more sour, add more vinegar. Not sweet enough? More syrup. Make sure to add these a teaspoon at a time, and pour it in the teaspoon over a bowl or something, and not over the sauce. That’s the easiest way to ruin your hard work.
5. Take it off the stove and let it cool down a bit.
6. Put it all in a blender and liquify it. If it’s still warm, loosen the top plastic thing (the one you can take out to add stuff in while blending) and put a clean rag over it before blending. Otherwise, it might explode into a literal hot mess.
7. Use to marinate food before and after cooking, put it on the table when eating, and/or store in a mason jar up to a week or so.