AIP BBQ Sauce
Years before I had ever heard of AIP or considered the potential for a life as a food blogger, I was addicted to the idea of making the "perfect BBQ sauce" recipe. I must have made...a million? A zillion? Hard to put a number on it but sufficed to say that I am well versed with the magical balance of sweet and tangy and salty. Now that I am 100% AIP none of my old recipes would work for making BBQ sauce. Still, many of the ingredients that I have tried over time have comparable AIP ingredients that can be substituted. The end result of this recipe is a sweet and sour BBQ sauce that is lip smackingly tangy and a serious contender as an award winning BBQ sauce - never mind AIP sauces - this BBQ sauce will take on all comers in any legitimate BBQ competition. Make a bunch and freeze it for easy use for adding easy flavor when you need it.
At risk of hurting myself up on this soapbox, I am somewhat of a BBQ sauce snob. I aggressively turn my nose up at any commercial or store bought BBQ sauces. I have yet to taste one that does not taste like boiled chemicals...which is what they are really. My zest for BBQ sauce started after seeing a winning BBQ competition recipe that was simply two different Heinz brand BBQ sauce flavors mixed together. I am sorry, but that is both sad and gross. Store bought sauce is fine for the busy masses but let's get real for a minute here - there is NO replacement for home cooked flavors and you simply can NOT make a commercial BBQ sauce that tastes as good as this one. Try it out for yourself!
* AIP is a burden to most people. One benefit that you could say about it however is it forces you to cook with an old-school mentality. It is hard, and not really congruent with living in modern society, but learning how to cook all of your food from scratch can actually be quite rewarding. Even if I were not needing to eat AIP I would not consider buying store bought sauces of any kind when making your own is cheaper, easy, and tastes a million times better. That is what you call a no-brainer.
Prep time
20 minutes
Cooking time
60 minutes
Recipe yield
10+ servings
Ingredients needed
1/2 ripe pineapple
1 red onion
1 yellow onion
3 beets
4 cloves garlic
1/2 teaspoon of garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon of onion powder
1/4 cup of coconut sugar
1/4 cup of maple syrup
1 tablespoon of coconut aminos
1 tablespoon of apple cider vinegar
2 teaspoons salt
Step 1 - Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit
Step 2 - Peel and dice both onions and add to oven pan
Step 3 - Peel and chop the half pineapple and add to the pan
Step 4 - Peel and chop two of the three beets and add to the pan
Step 5 - Cover and bake at 350 for one hour
Step 6 - Bake the garlic cloves for an hour in a small separate covered container
Step 7 - Strain all liquids from the pan and set aside. Add the onions and pineapple to a blender
Step 8 - Add roasted garlic to the blender along with both garlic and onion powder and pulse for 60 seconds
Step 8 - If more liquid is needed slowly add reserved liquid from the onions and pineapple. Use as little extra liquid as possible
Step 8 - Pour sauce into a glass bowl. Stir in vinegar, maple syrup, aminos and coconut sugar
Step 8 - Heat BBQ sauce in a microwave until just starting to bubble. Stir well
The microwaving at the end is just to heat up all that sugar you just added and get it to melt together nicely. Without this additional heat step the BBQ sauce will be a little grainy from the uncooked sugar. This is no problem at all and the same caramelizing effect happens when you cook with this BBQ sauce...but I find that I like to use it on all kinds of other things that I never would have used BBQ sauce on normally. Sometime even just a spoon of it right from the fridge. Heating it up at this stage makes it easier to store and use day to day. I prefer to make a larger batch of this BBQ sauce and freeze portions of it that I will take out to live in the refrigerator one by one.
a few notes on the process here include saving one raw beet to add to the blender, which really helps to get the deep crimson coloring that you are looking for. Cooked beets are a little too pink, but all raw beets would be too strong in flavor. The garlic could be chopped and added in with the onions, but I find roasting the garlic by itself first helps to render to oils in the garlic down to a golden brown. When added raw to the pan they tend to turn green instead of brown, and the flavor lacks the smooth and smokey roasted garlic flavor, instead taking on a more bitter and punchy profile. Both are good, but I prefer the roasted garlic more. For bonus points roast the garlic along with olive oil, salt and apple cider vinegar. Finally, there are a lot of sugars in this recipe for the AIP diet, however you will be spreading this out over many servings. This is not soup...don't eat bowls of it. When used sparingly as a sauce you should be able to squeeze it in a balanced AIP diet.
A note on sugar - I have used a proportion of sugar which I feel represents the minimum amount to achieve the correct balance of flavors. In reality if you prefer less sugars, you can reduce the amount but I would expect the end result of the sauce to be a little less impressive. In reality, you can increase the sugar content in this sauce and this would result in a sweeter, stickier, and altogether superior sauce. It is only to meet AIP standards that the sugar content is as low as it is. If you have room in your diet, or you eat such small quantities that the sugars are not a concern, maximum flavor would require as much as double the sugar content as posted here. Find the amount that works right for you.
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About the author - Steve Goodale is a blogger and technical specialist from Ontario Canada, winner of the 2018 Industry Leadership Award, who reaches over three million readers per year with his popular pool and spa blog. Steve started the www.CookForMeBaby.com blog about healthy eating after being diagnosed with a rare and incurable autoimmune disease. You can read more on his story about life with MCTD here. For more healthy cooking inspiration check out his other delicious recipes.
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