Barbecue Chicken with Apricot and Dried Cherry Sauce

Friday, 18 May 2012 | Written by Karen Sheer |Printer-friendly versionSend to friend

A wonderful easy recipe for your Memorial Day Cookout or Graduation Party. It's Barbecue Season... let's get cooking!

It's party season, and this recipe is a nice twist on your everyday grilled chicken with bottled barbecue sauce. Also works well with ribs, fish steaks, steak and even vegetarian entrees.

Bottled sauces contain preservatives and unhealthy ingredients like excessive sugar and high fructose corn syrup. All, to my taste are too sweet and have and an unnatural after taste. This barbecue sauce gets much of it's sweetness naturally ~ from dried apricots and cherries.

Start by sauteing onion, garlic and ginger. Add all remaining ingredients and simmer, covered for 30 minutes - then puree. It's that easy. The key ingredients that make the flavor well balanced are: fire roasted tomatoes, chipotle peppers, dry mustard, black sesame seeds and balsamic vinegar. Dark brown sugar sweetens and a touch of molasses adds flavor and a deep color. The natural sweetness of the dried fruits lend a nice balance of sweet & tangy. Commercial barbecue sauces contain a higher concentration of sugar and "natural" ingredients which are any thing but natural.

One of the largest selling barbecue sauces ingredients below (KC Masterpiece Original Flavor)

Ingredients
Tomato Puree (Water, Tomato Paste), High Fructose Corn Syrup, Molasses, Vinegar, less than 2% of: Spices, Natural Hickory Smoke Flavor, Natural Flavors, Modified Food Starch, Salt, Xanthan Gum, Dried Onion, Dried Garlic, Caramel Color, Turmeric, Paprika Extracts.

If you are reading my blog, and enjoy my well tested and healthy recipes you will understand why I would never use this bbq sauce. High fructose corn syrup - never!

Here is some information for you to read about what "natural" means in the world of food labeling. "Natural" can be a synthetic equivalent and is not what you think!

‘Natural’: The most meaningless word on your food label? Consumers, the marketers all tell us, want foods that are ‘wholesome’, ‘authentic’, and above all ‘natural’, although few of them can articulate what this means.

In the United States, neither the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) nor the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has rules for “natural." The FDA explicitly discourages the food industry from using the term.^[10] The Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act prohibits labeling that is false or misleading, but does not give any specifics. The USDA's Agricultural Marketing Service has a standard for organic food.^[11]

Because there is no legal meaning for natural foods, food manufacturers can include ingredients that may not be considered natural by some consumers.

While "natural" is often used to convey a sense of wholesomeness and health, clearly there can be different personal interpretations.

There are three broad origins of additives:

Natural - naturally occurring extracts
Nature identical - man-made copies of natural substances that are chemically identical
Artificial - manufactured substances that do not occur in natural food

Many commonly used additives have both a natural origin, and a cheaper synthetic or nature identical equivalent. Depending on applicable government regulations, manufacturers may consider both natural and nature identical additives as "Natural" for the purposes of package labelling and marketing.

Are natural additives safer than artificial ones?

No. Individuals have been known to react to additives of all origins. In some cases, artificial additives may even be better controlled in terms of testing and consistency/quality.

Look for my next blog for more entertaining recipes for Memorial Day, a celebration or a well cooked family meal.

Karen