Roasted Strawberry BBQ Sauce
Making a quick homemade Roasted Strawberry BBQ Sauce is a great way to celebrate spring and fresh strawberries! This version is mixed with honey, balsamic vinegar, and a ketchup base. It’s incredibly easy to make and goes great slathered on almost any grilled protein!
Strawberries are a perfect fruit for mixing into BBQ sauce. Ripe strawberries are sweet, but they can also have a slight tang to them that is great in BBQ sauce. When you roast them they also pick up some umami flavors.
Uses for this homemade strawberry BBQ sauce are many. To start, I just slathered it on some grilled chicken and guess what? It was good! But it would also be amazing to finish off grilled ribs or brushed on veggie burgers. It’s a pretty all purpose sauce that is definitely not something you’ll find in the stores!
Roasted Strawberry BBQ Sauce
When you can find good ripe strawberries, this homemade strawberry BBQ sauce is worth making! Just a few ingredients and it goes well slathered on almost anything on the grill.
Ingredients
Helpful Equipment
Directions
- Preheat oven to 450 degrees F. Cut stems off strawberries and slice them in half. Spread them out on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper (for easy clean up) and drizzle with olive oil and season with salt.
- Roast strawberries for 15 minutes until they are browned in spots around the edges.
- Meanwhile, add other ingredients to a medium pot and bring to a simmer over low heat. When strawberries are done roasting, add them to the pot as well and simmer for a few minutes.
- Remove mixture from the the stovetop and transfer to blender. Let cool for a minute and then blend until smooth.
- Transfer sauce to an airtight container and store in the fridge for 2 weeks or freeze for longer storage.
- Use the BBQ sauce liberally on almost any grilled item, but it’s particularly good on grilled chicken or pork. You can also mix it with a little olive oil and red wine vinegar to make a good salad dressing!
How to Make Roasted Strawberry BBQ Sauce
The good news is that this time of year you should start seeing loads of fresh strawberries in markets and stores. They tend to be cheaper this time of year and sweeter. I’m not sure I’d bother with this sauce if strawberries are really out of season.
When you do find the strawberries you want to use, cut off the stems, cut them in half and toss them with some olive oil and salt on a baking sheet.
Roast ’em!
Those strawberries should roast at 450 degrees F. for about 15 minutes.
Meanwhile, you can combine and simmer the other ingredients.
Good mix.
Once the strawberries are roasted and charred in spots, you can add them into the pot with the other ingredients.
Pour ’em in!
Now you need to simmer the ingredients together but no need to simmer the ingredients for a long time. A few minutes to combine flavors will be just fine.
After a simmer.
Cool the sauce a bit and then blend it up! There probably isn’t enough of the sauce to use an immersion blender so I just transferred my sauce to a normal blender and blended it up!
Blend it up.
How to Use the Strawberry BBQ Sauce
Use it liberally on all things on the grill, of course! It’s a sweet, tangy, and slightly spicy sauce so it goes well on many things.
On the grill.
Once you have this BBQ sauce made, it keeps really well in the fridge for a few weeks. You could also freeze it for longer storage but you probably won’t have an issue using a batch while it is fresh!
Happy grilling season, everybody!
2 comments on “Roasted Strawberry BBQ Sauce”
This looks awesome! Do you think it would can ok? With the vinegar, I’m inclined to say yes, but you know a LOT more than I do.
Hey Kate! I’m not sure on that one… I would want to test the PH of it for sure before canning it. To be honest I’ve never tried canning any BBQ sauce. It isn’t super hard to make so I just make small batches when I need/want it. Hope that helps!