Oh, I Can Have This? Refined Sugar Free BBQ Sauce

Hello, faithful readers!  I meant to have a post for you yesterday, but life got in the way, as it tends to do, and I failed to post.  So, now you’re in a for a real treat! 

We have started eating our main meal at lunchtime these days (and we have yet to settle on a name for this meal!!!) Well, today, we had sloppy joes on the menu.  I had tried a BBQ sauce recipe that I found online for the ribs I made last week, but it wasn’t anyone’s favorite. 

Child #2 found it way too vinegary.  Others just didn’t like the flavor.  Everyone thought it was too thin.  What’s a girl to do?  Well…make my own of course!  Here is what you’ll need for this sweet, savory sauce:

2, 15 oz. cans tomato sauce
2, 6 oz. cans tomato paste
2 tsp. granulated onion
1/2 tsp. granulated garlic
2 tsp. smoked paprika
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
12 packets stevia
1 Tbsp. agave syrup
1 Tbsp. unsulfured molasses
1/2 tsp. salt


Add all ingredients to a saucepan.  Stir and cook low heat until warmed through and flavors are melded.

Why am I adding agave and molasses when this would be awesome as a completely sugar free sauce? Here’s the thing…stevia tends to have a bitter aftertaste, so by adding the agave that goes away. As for the molasses? Um…how can you have a BBQ sauce without it? Think about it. Most BBQ sauces have brown sugar, right? So what is brown sugar these days? Nothing but refined white sugar with molasses added for the brown color and flavor. The darker the brown sugar, the more the molasses. There you go – your cooking trivia for the day!

If you would like a thinner sauce, you could either add some water or cut it down to only one can of tomato paste. I rather like the thick consistency and think it would stick well to ribs, though I haven’t tried that yet. Just the sloppy joes. They look awesome!