Homemade Maple Barbecue Sauce for Grilled Meals

Why Make Your Own Barbecue Sauce?

Shop-bought barbecue sauce is often built on a foundation of glucose-fructose syrup, with a long list of thickeners and flavourings doing the work that a handful of honest ingredients could do far better. Make it at home and you get to decide how sweet it is, how smoky, how sharp. You also get a sauce that tastes of actual tomatoes and actual spice rather than a vague, sticky sweetness.

Maple syrup is the natural sweetener that makes this recipe sing. Unlike refined sugar, which simply tastes sweet, maple brings a soft caramel note and a whisper of vanilla and woodsmoke that sits beautifully alongside tomato and paprika. It also caramelises neatly on a hot grill without turning bitter, which is exactly what you want when you are glazing a tray of vegetables or a burger at the last minute. Use a proper maple syrup — the amber or dark grades have more flavour than the palest ones — and not a maple-flavoured syrup, which is usually just sugar syrup with colouring.

What You Will Need

This makes roughly 400 ml, enough for four generous portions with some left in the jar. Nothing here is hard to find; most of it lives in a normal British store cupboard.

• 1 tbsp rapeseed oil or unsalted butter
• 1 small onion, finely chopped (about 100g)
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed
• 1 tbsp tomato purée
• 1 tsp smoked paprika
• ½ tsp ground cumin
• ¼ tsp ground cinnamon — subtle, but it rounds everything out
• ¼ tsp cayenne pepper, or to taste
• 250 ml passata, or a 400g tin of chopped tomatoes blitzed smooth
• 100 ml maple syrup
• 2 tbsp cider vinegar
• 1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce — swap in soy sauce or tamari for a vegetarian version
• 1 tsp English mustard
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper

The Method, Step by Step

Warm the oil in a heavy-based saucepan over a medium heat. Add the onion with a good pinch of salt and cook gently for eight to ten minutes, until soft and translucent but not coloured. Add the garlic and cook for another minute, just until it smells fragrant.

Now add the tomato purée, smoked paprika, cumin, cinnamon and cayenne. Stir constantly for about thirty seconds. This brief frying blooms the spices and cooks out the raw edge of the purée — skip it and the finished sauce will taste flatter.

Pour in the passata, maple syrup, cider vinegar, Worcestershire sauce and mustard. Stir well, bring to a gentle simmer, then turn the heat down low. Let it bubble quietly for fifteen to twenty minutes, stirring now and then, until it has thickened enough to coat the back of a spoon. If it looks too thick, loosen it with a splash of water; if too thin, give it a few more minutes.

Take the pan off the heat and blend until smooth with a stick blender, or leave it chunky if you prefer a more rustic texture. Taste and adjust: more vinegar for sharpness, more maple for sweetness, more cayenne for heat, more salt to wake the whole thing up. Remember the sauce will taste slightly less sweet once it has cooled, so do not over-correct while it is hot.

Using It on the Grill

Because maple caramelises quickly, this sauce works best as a glaze rather than a marinade applied at the start. Brush it on in the final few minutes of cooking, turning the food once or twice, and keep an eye on it — sugar burns in seconds over a fierce flame.

• Grilled vegetables: halved aubergines, thick courgette batons, red pepper quarters and wedges of red onion all take kindly to it. Brush with oil first, grill until nearly done, then glaze and give them another two minutes a side.
• Tofu: press a block of firm tofu for twenty minutes, slice into 2cm slabs, and toss in a little cornflour before griddling. Glaze at the end for a lacquered finish, or use the sauce as a marinade for an hour beforehand.
• Weekend burgers: brush over beef, lamb or bean patties in the last minute of cooking, then serve the rest in a jug at the table. It is also very good on grilled halloumi and on corn on the cob.

The sauce is equally useful indoors. Spoon it over roasted cauliflower, stir it through a tray of chickpeas before baking, or use it as a base for baked beans.

Storing, Tweaking and Making It Yours

Decant the cooled sauce into a clean jar or bottle and keep it in the fridge, where it will last a fortnight. It freezes well in small portions for up to three months, which is handy if you make a double batch.

Once you are confident with the basic formula, treat it as a framework. A teaspoon of black treacle deepens the colour and adds a molasses edge. A finely grated orange zest lifts the whole thing. A chipotle chilli in adobo, chopped small, brings smoke and heat together. If you are cooking for someone who finds maple too pronounced, cut it to 70 ml and add a tablespoon of soft brown sugar instead.

That is the quiet pleasure of making your own: the jar in the fridge is never quite the same twice, and it is always built to your own taste. Start with this batch, note down what you changed, and by midsummer you will have a house sauce you would not trade for anything on the supermarket shelf.