Make Ahead

Rhubarb & Wine Barbecue Sauce

by:
April 29, 2010
4.5
2 Ratings
Rhubarb & Wine Barbecue Sauce
  • Makes about 2 cups
Author Notes

When I saw that rhubarb was the ingredient for one of this week's contests, barbecue sauce came to mind. I am not much of a baker, so I didn't want to go the dessert route. I knew that rhubarb was tart and thought it would be a nice addition to a barbecue sauce. I added red wine and coffee to give the sauce more depth. It definitely makes a difference to use a high quality chili powder. I used an unsweetened ketchup from a natural foods company, so if you are using a sweet ketchup you may need less brown sugar. For the wine, I used a syrah, but I think any nice red wine would do. My only rule with using wine in cooking is never to cook with a wine that I wouldn't drink. We had this over pork ribs last night and it was pretty fantastic. I imagine it would go very well with beef too. —clintonhillbilly

What You'll Need
Ingredients
  • 6 stalks rhubarb
  • 1/3 cup sugar
  • 1/2 cup water
  • 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
  • 1/2 cup ketchup
  • 1/2 cup red wine
  • 1/2 cup strong coffee
  • 1/4 cup brown sugar
  • 2 tablespoons yellow mustard
  • 2 tablespoons chili powder
  • 1 tablespoon worcestershire sauce
  • 1 teaspoon sea salt
  • 1/8 teaspoon liquid smoke
  • 8 twists of a black pepper grinder
Directions
  1. Chop rhubarb and place in a saucepan with water and 1/3 cup sugar. Bring to a boil and boil for ten minutes, adding water if necessary and sugar to taste. The rhubarb should be sweet, tart, and soft enough to be easily mushed with a spoon.
  2. Add all other sauce ingredients, stir well to thoroughly combine, and simmer for 30 minutes.
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  • Peter Jones
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clintonhillbilly

Recipe by: clintonhillbilly

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6 Reviews

Peter J.
Peter J. June 22, 2016
How about listing rhubarb by weight, as stalks vary in size greatly and "6 stalks" is more or less useless in indicating a quantity.
 
Peter J.
Peter J. June 22, 2016
Or cups? Could we say how many cups?
 
clintonhillbilly
clintonhillbilly June 22, 2016
Sorry Peter, I do not recall how many cups and did not have a kitchen scale. If I make it again I'll make that edit.
 
Josephsm
Josephsm June 8, 2011
This was great. I was looking for a fairly simple non-dessert use for rhubarb. This came out surprisingly spicy. The rhubarb flavor was evident. It was perfect slathered on grilled pork chops.
 
Sagegreen
Sagegreen July 24, 2010
What a great recipe. Putney Wines makes a wonderful rhubarb white wine. I wonder if that would work well in this recipe. I usually don't like fruit wines, but this one is exceptional....very rhubarb.
 
NakedBeet
NakedBeet April 30, 2010
Really like the sound of this, just bought some liquid smoke, too. Check!