With cherry season in full swing, now is the time to play in the kitchen with cherries. While we usually just end up eating cherries right out of the basket, we wanted to try out a unique way to use fresh cherries instead. And that’s when we came across this recipe: Cherry Balsamic Barbeque Sauce! We no longer think it’s a coincidence that cherries are in season at the same time BBQing is possible. This sauce is insanely good – it’s sweet with a wonderful cherry flavor. Use it as a substitute for your regular BBQ sauce or try it on meatballs like we did.  

We have one piece of advice – the most time consuming step of this recipe is pitting the cherries. When we made this recipe we used a cherry pitter and it made this step so much easier. If you don’t have a cherry pitter, click here to look at the one we bought on Amazon.  

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 sweet onion, diced
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 2 cups dark sweet cherries, pitted and stems removed
• 1 cup ketchup
• 2/3 cup brown sugar
• 1/3 cup balsamic vinegar
• 1 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
• 2 tsp ground mustard
• 1/2 tsp black pepper

Directions

1. Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add in the onion and sauté for about 5 minutes. Add in the garlic and sauté for another minute or two.
2. Stir in the cherries, ketchup, brown sugar, balsamic, Worcestershire sauce, ground mustard, and black pepper.
3. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to medium-low and simmer for 10 minutes.
4. Transfer to a blender or food processor (or keep it in the pan and use an immersion blender *we suggest using an immersion blend if you have one). Blend until smooth.
5. Return to pan. Bring it back to a simmer and continue simmering for another 10 minutes.

Recipe Courtesy of: The Stay at Home Chef