Recipe for a vegan, date-sweetened BBQ sauce. The perfect condiment for cookouts! It’s smoky and sweet, perfect for tofu, tempeh and grilled veggies!
Have you ever made your own BBQ Sauce? I’m a big fan of making sauces from scratch because you can add your own special twist! This vegan BBQ sauce is sweetened with dates and I absolutely love how it turned out! It’s smoky (hellooo liquid smoke!), slightly sweet, slightly spicy – and everything a good BBQ sauce should be.
For a nice color and a bit more fruitiness, I’ve added red grape juice to the mix. As always with fruit juices, make sure they one you are using is vegan. Lately, I’ve noticed that more and more juices have a vegan label on the packaging, so that’s a good thing. At least here in Austria.
You can use the BBQ sauce also to coat tofu or tempeh such as these tempeh slices are coated in the BBQ sauce and roasted in the pan and served with curried couscous!
- 1 teaspoon olive oil
- 2 garlic cloves , minced
- 1 small red onion , chopped
- 4 soft dates , pitted and chopped
- 1 teaspoon paprika powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/3 cup red grape juice
- 1/2 cup tomato puree/passata
- 1/4 teaspoon sriracha or to taste
- 1/4 teaspoon liquid smoke
- In a pot on medium heat, add the olive oil, garlic cloves, red onion and dates and let it cook until the onions are translucent.
- Add paprika powder and salt, give it a quick mix and deglaze with red grape juice.
- Then add tomato puree, sriracha and liquid smoke and let it simmer for about 5-10 minutes.
- Let it cool off a bit before adding everything to a blender (or use an immersion blender) and blend until smooth.
- Fill the BBQ sauce in a clean glass jar and store it in the fridge for about 1 week.
Did you make this Vegan Date-Sweetened BBQ Sauce? Tag @elephantasticvegan on instagram and use the hashtag #elephantasticvegan. Don’t forget to subscribe to the Elephantastic Vegan Newsletter to see Reader Remake Features!
You know how I feel about dates, and I love seeing them swap over to the cooking and not just baking side! Plus grape juice too…this is like the condiment of my sweet + savory loving dreams <3
Yes, you’re the queen of dates! hahaha how that sounds :D