This easy Homemade BBQ Sauce uses cranberries instead of tomatoes for a surprisingly similar result! Nightshade free, it’s irresistibly delicious with it’s classic smokey taste and velvety texture! This tomato free bbq recipe will become your new favorite way to use cranberries!
Tomato Free BBQ Sauce
This amazingly flavorful smokey bbq sauce uses cranberries in place of tomato. That’s right, this nightshade and tomato free bbq sauce uses that antioxidant-rich fruit best known for it’s integral part in your Thanksgiving table to make some of the best bbq sauce you’ll ever taste!
Looking for cranberries out of season? Here’s where I get mine!
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Cranberry BBQ Sauce
Cranberries are very well suited to the application of sauces since they are naturally very high in pectin making them automatically achieve that thicken bbq sauce texture we desire in a sauce. A few other classic bbq sauce ingredients blended together and you’ve got an amazing sauce you’ll be slathering on anything you can get your hands on!
Key Ingredients needed for Nightshade Free BBQ Sauce
- fresh cranberries – fresh (or frozen, thawed and drained) cranberries are the star of this tomato free bbq sauce. I guarantee you’ll be blown away by how much cranberries resemble tomatoes in this recipe.
- apple cider vinegar – for that kick of acid necessary in a good bbq sauce this recipe calls for apple cider vinegar although you could also use distilled white vinegar if you’d prefer.
- unsulphured backstrap molasses – bursting with vitamins and minerals molasses is a wonderful flavoring agent and helps contribute to the dark beautiful color of this sauce (which will appear darker in real life).
- honey – finally a bbq sauce not loaded with sugar! Honey is the sweetener of this recipe and the taste is amazing! I recommend a mild flavored clover or wildflower honey.
- liquid smoke – one of the most crucial ingredients in a good bbq sauce is smoke and here we use and recommend Wright’s Hickory Liquid Smoke for a clean option without fillers and unnecessary additives that many liquid smokes can have. Perfect for making aip bbq sauce.
How to make this BBQ Sauce Without Tomatoes
*Scroll down to the recipe card for the complete recipe and instructions.
This recipe can be made easily in the Instant Pot or on the stove top. I have to prefer the Instant Pot method personally for it’s quick hands off process but both work beautifully!
To your Instant Pot, add the cranberries, red onions, garlic, water, apple cider vinegar, molasses, salt, mustard powder, ground cloves, black pepper, allspice and cayenne pepper. Place the lid on the Instant Pot, lock and set the steamer valve to sealing. Select high pressure / manual for 3 minutes with a 10 minute natural release.
After the 10 minute natural release, quick release any remaining pressure. It’s important to allow time for that natural release since the sauce both finishes cooking during that time and begins slowly depressurizing so that you don’t loose any of your sauce in the venting process.
Carefully remove the lid once the pressure pin drops and set the lid aside. Using an immersion blender (one of my favorite kitchen tools!), blend the sauce right in the Instant Pot until smooth. Alternatively you can carefully transfer the sauce to a standard blender and blend until smooth.
For a completely smooth sauce after blending, strain the sauce through a sieve lined with cheesecloth. This is a very important step I don’t recommend skipping because cranberry seeds are tiny and even the best blender misses some of them.
After straining, add in the honey and liquid smoke. You can start by mixing in half of each ingredient at a time and tasting. I prefer the full amount of each however some may like it less (or even more) sweet and smokey.
Once you’ve seasoned to taste, you are ready to portion your sauce into jars. This recipe makes a batch of sauce perfect for a crowd, gifts or freezing. Lid, label and date each jar and place them in the fridge overnight before transferring any jars to the freezer for long term storage. This bbq sauce will last up to 2 weeks in the fridge and up to 3 months in the freezer.
More Healthy Sauce Recipes
- Arugula Walnut Pesto
- The Best Ranch Dressing
- Homemade Mayonnaise
- Chipotle Marinade For Chicken
- Instant Pot Veggie Applesauce
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Tomato Free BBQ Sauce
- Prep Time: 5 minutes
- Cook Time: 13 minutes
- Total Time: 18 minutes
- Yield: 10 cups 1x
- Category: Homemade Basics
- Method: Instant Pot
- Cuisine: American
Description
This easy Homemade BBQ Sauce uses cranberries instead of tomatoes for a surprisingly similar result! Nightshade free, it’s irresistibly delicious with it’s classic smokey taste and velvety texture! This tomato free bbq recipe will become your new favorite way to use cranberries!
Ingredients
- 3 lbs fresh cranberries, rinsed and drained OR frozen cranberries, thawed and drained
- 2 large red onions, roughly chopped
- 6 large garlic cloves, peeled and smashed
- 1 1/2 cups water
- 1 cup apple cider vinegar or white distilled vinegar
- 2 Tablespoons unsulphured backstrap molasses
- 1 Tablespoon unrefined sea salt
- 2 teaspoons mustard powder
- 1 teaspoon ground cloves
- 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
- 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper (omit to make AIP or nightshade free)
- 3 cups honey
- 3 Tablespoons + 1 teaspoon liquid smoke (this brand is AIP compliant)
Instructions
Instant Pot Instructions:
- To your Instant Pot, add the cranberries, red onions, garlic, water, apple cider vinegar, molasses, salt, mustard powder, ground cloves, black pepper, allspice and cayenne pepper.
- Place the lid on the Instant Pot, lock and set the steamer valve to sealing. Select high pressure / manual for 3 minutes with a 10 minute natural release.
- After the 10 minute natural release, quick release any remaining pressure.
- Carefully remove the lid once the pressure pin drops and set the lid aside.
- Using an immersion blender, blend the sauce right in the Instant Pot until smooth. (Alternatively you can carefully transfer the sauce to a standard blender and blend until smooth.)
- *Optional but highly recommended, even with a high speed blender some of the tiny cranberries seeds seem to remain. For a completely smooth sauce after blending, strain the sauce through a sieve lined with cheesecloth.
- After straining, add in the honey and liquid smoke. You can start by mixing in half of each ingredient at a time and tasting. I prefer the full amount of each however some may like it less (or even more) sweet and smokey.
- Once you’ve seasoned to taste, you are ready to portion your sauce into jars. Lid, label and date each jar and place them in the fridge overnight before transferring any jars to the freezer for long term storage. This bbq sauce will last up to 2 weeks in the fridge and up to 3 months in the freezer.
- Enjoy on all your favorite foods!
Stove Top Instructions:
- To your large sauce pot, add the cranberries, red onions, garlic, water, apple cider vinegar, molasses, salt, mustard powder, ground cloves, black pepper, allspice and cayenne pepper.
- Place the lid on the pot and cook over medium heat at a simmer for 20-30 minutes until the cranberries and onions are tender.
- Using an immersion blender, blend the sauce right in the sauce pot until smooth. (Alternatively you can carefully transfer the sauce to a standard blender and blend until smooth.)
- *Optional but highly recommended, even with a high speed blender some of the tiny cranberries seeds seem to remain. For a completely smooth sauce after blending, strain the sauce through a sieve lined with cheesecloth.
- After straining, add in the honey and liquid smoke. You can start by mixing in half of each ingredient at a time and tasting. I prefer the full amount of each however some may like it less (or even more) sweet and smokey.
- Once you’ve seasoned to taste, you are ready to portion your sauce into jars. Lid, label and date each jar and place them in the fridge overnight before transferring any jars to the freezer for long term storage. This bbq sauce will last up to 2 weeks in the fridge and up to 3 months in the freezer.
- Enjoy on all your favorite foods!
Notes
*Expect that this sauce will appear darker and richer in real life than it does on a screen.
Keywords: cranberry bbq sauce, tomato free bbq sauce, nightshade free bbq sauce,
Rebekka says
What can I substitute onion for? Leek?
Nicole says
Hello Rebecca! Yes, you could certainly use a leek in place of the onion.
★★★★★
Marie Smith says
Sorry it sounds good but isn’t cayenne a nightshade? So it’s tomato free but I’m not sure it’s nightshade free.
Nicole says
Hello Marie! 1/4 teaspoon of cayenne is not intrical to the recipe. You can certainly omit this ingredient. Enjoy!
★★★★★
Lynne says
I wish this recipe made a lot less sauce. We wouldn’t be able to use that much in a year! I also would like to try it to see if we like the taste. It would be wasteful to make this much and not use it all.
Nicole says
Hi Lynne! Thanks for sharing your thoughts. You could easily do the math and cut the recipe in half if you’d like. I had hoped making a batch to freeze would be enough to last us a year with our modest needs but it most definitely isn’t. With restraint it didn’t even last half a year. It is so delicious we’ve been adding it to more than I imagined! If you try it, I’d love to know what you think.
★★★★★