BBQ sauce from scratch

Yes it is true, it is possible to make your own amazingly flavored BBQ sauce at home from scratch. Now BBQ sauces (the good ones, the ones minus the corn syrup) are going for upwards of $5 a jar... but you can make it way cheaper at home. I mean it's a lot more work, but the result can be as individual as you are. We worked on making a pineapple BBQ sauce at home and although i am not sure what the exact measurements are but here is what we used.

1/2 can crushed pineapple (use can use fresh but it should be cut small)
1 (15oz) can diced organic tomatoes
1 (6oz) can organic tomato paste
1/2 white onion, small dice
1-3 tspn chili flake (depends on your heat preference)
liquid smoke (not sure how much, maybe 2 Tblspn)
4-6 shakes of worchestershire sauce
sea salt (to taste)
lemon juice (1/2 lemon)
sugar (depends on taste)
2 tspn cider vinegar
3-5 cups water (depending on thickness you want)
(you could also add heat to it by adding jalapeno, take out the pineapple and add peach for a different sweetness, and i might have used dark molasses instead of cane sugar because it creates a darker less red sauce)

so, we sweat the onion down on a med-high heat, added the pineapple, liquid smoke, worchestershire sauce, lemon, liquid smoke, vinegar, salt and chili flake. allow flavors to cook and sweat together. then we added the tomatoes, sugar and the paste, stirring well, and added water reduced the heat to med/low, and cooked it down for about 30 min stirring occasionally. allow to cook down and let the flavors infuse. we probably cooked this for a total of 1 hour. then we blended the mixture in a blender and pulsed it until it was a consistency that was thick, but could be poured.

I will say that it was a bit twangy when we first tried it. there was a lot of acid because of the tomatoes and vinegar, but we mellowed it out by adding a little more sugar, i think in the end we probably used a total of 1 Tblspn sugar to balance it. but that really helped to make it taste amazing!!! and we had so much of it, so we will be eating BBQ sauce on everything for a while, but at least we know what's in it, and it's delicious.

so the next time you are in the sauce aisle at the store, first look at the price, then look at the ingredients, and remember, you too can make some darn good sauce at home for cheaper, for more product, and with all the say in the flavors you use!

Happy cooking