Mango Habanero BBQ Sauce

I love barbecue sauce. I love it more than any other sauce. Every time I get a burger, I make sure it has barbecue sauce. I dip fries in barbecue sauce. But for a long time I had no idea how easy it was to make the magical, rich sauce that goes good on anything savory. There's obviously countless recipes for barbecue sauce, probably as many recipes as there are chefs in the world. I just wanted to share one of my personal favorites. 

I was gonna make peach barbecue sauce but the store didn't have peach nectar. They did have mango nectar and I knew that mangos pair well with habanero peppers, which would make my sauce even better. I also used a spice called Amchoor, which is made from dried unripe mangoes that have been ground into a powder. You can buy it in most Indian grocery stores or at an international market like Jungle Jims. Or you could just do what I did and buy unripe mangoes at the grocery store, peel them, cut them up, and dry them yourself in the oven. 

The addition of mango habanero hot sauce is optional in this recipe, I added it because I needed more heat (I only had 1 habanero pepper). You can add it if you want or just add more habanero peppers, it's up to you. 

To make this recipe, you'll need: 

2 onions, diced

1 habanero pepper, deseeded and minced or more for added heat

1 tsp chipotle powder

1/2 tsp amchoor

1 tbsp mango habanero Seasoning 

1 tbsp brown sugar

1/4 cup white wine 1 cup ketchup

1 1/2 cups mango nectar

1 1/2 tbsp Worcestershire Sauce

1 tbsp molassas 1 tsp liquid smoke

Mango habanero hot sauce (optional) Salt to taste Begin by sautéing the onions and pepper(s) in butter until they're translucent but not brown. Sprinkle them with salt while you do this so they release more flavor into the pan. 

Add the spices and stir to make sure all the onions are coated. Cook to remove the flavor of raw spices. 

Now add the brown sugar. Stir everything together until the sugar has melted and the onions are coated and sticky. 

Now add the white wine and reduce it until it's just a syrupy flavor base. This is my basic procedure for starting all barbecue sauces. From here, I usually just let my creativity run wild (with mixed results) but since I'm making specifically a mango barbecue sauce with mango spices and seasonings, I stuck to that. 

Stir in ketchup, molasses, Worcestershire Sauce, mango nectar, hot sauce, and liquid smoke. Cook until it's at your desired thickness and season to taste with salt. 

Strain the sauce through a fine-mesh sieve and pour into a jar. Keep refrigerated since I don't know if this is shelf stable (4.6pH or lower). Not that it lasts long enough in our house for us to need to can it. I probably make a new batch of barbecue sauce every week or so. Just recently I tried adding chocolate to one and it turned out great but I forgot to write down the recipe. Oh well. 

I'm thinking about doing more barbecue sauces, since I love making them so much, what do you think? Are you interested in seeing more posts like this?