Even after making blackberry pie, I had nearly a quart of blackberries left. Fortuitously a friend took me out to lunch yesterday and we both had Salmon Salad with Blackberry Barbecue Sauce. This got me thinking about creating my own version of the very tasty barbecue sauce. I must have looked at two dozen recipes online last night and nearly all of them contained ketchup! Using store-bought ketchup is not my idea of cooking from scratch, not even considering my allergy to tomatoes. I came up with the following recipe and, with a little bit of tweaking, made it tonight. We had it on baked salmon and it was fantastic. There’s enough left that tomorrow night we’ll have it on chicken.

I used wildflower honey due to my sensitivity to cane sugar, most of the recipes called for either light brown sugar, honey or molasses.

3 cups blackberries, partial thawed if using frozen
1 onion, rough chopped
6 cloves garlic, rough chopped
1/4 cup honey
1 1/2 Tbs balsamic vinegar
1/2 tsp smoked paprika
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp black pepper

In a medium saucepot, combine all ingredients. Cook on medium heat until it starts to simmer. Reduce heat to medium low and simmer for about an hour, stirring often. Remove from heat, purée in a blender or with an immersion blender, and strain through mesh sieve or chinois. Add sauce to salmon or chicken during the last ten minutes or so of cooking. Store the leftovers in the refrigerator. Large batches of this recipe is suitable for canning in a water bath.