I mentioned I went to Traverse City recently on vacation and picked up some sweet Michigan cherries. I knew I had to cook something with them. I wasn’t really in the mood for a dessert, so I figured I’d make some homemade cherry BBQ sauce! This ended up being a really fun recipe and I loosely followed this cherry BBQ sauce recipe, but added chipotle peppers and a little more spice with the chili flakes. I am not a huge fan of ketchup, so I did tomato paste and a little water instead.
I thought this BBQ sauce would be great on a shredded chicken sandwich. Shredded chicken is SO easy in the slow cooker, so I threw it in just before I left for work. It cooked around 8 hours on low and I used half of my BBQ sauce in the slow cooker and saved the other half for topping the shredded chicken when it was cooked.
Ingredients:
2 cups of roughly chopped (and pitted) cherries
1 6oz. can of tomato paste
4 oz. of water
2/3 cup brown sugar
1-1/2 tsp. ground mustard
2 chipotle peppers (chopped and seeded)
1 Tbsp. of adobo sauce (from chipotle peppers)
1 medium yellow onion, diced or pureed
2 Tbsp. garlic, finely chopped
2 Tbsp. butter
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
1-1/2 Tbsp. worchestshire sauce
1 tsp. red chili flakes
4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
2 cups chicken stock
Sauce Preparation:
- Pit cherries and roughly chop – set aside
- Puree or dice onion.
- Melt butter in a 2 quart saucepan and add onion and garlic. Saute until onions are translucent
- Add tomato paste, water, brown sugar, ground mustard, chipotle peppers, adobo sauce, cider vinegar, Worcestershire sauce and cherries
- Cook for 20 minutes on medium until thickened
- Add red chili flakes to taste
- Separate sauce – 1/2 for slow cooking chicken and 1/2 for topping sandwiches (I made this sauce a day in advance and just put it in the fridge until I was ready to use it)
Sandwich ingredients:
- 4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
- 2 cups chicken stock
- Sliced provolone cheese
- 1 Tbsp. butter
- 1 Tbsp. chopped garlic
- 1 loaf french bread
Sandwich Preparation:
- Add chicken to bottom of slow cooker. Pour 1/2 of BBQ sauce over it and 1 cup of chicken stock
- Cook chicken for 8 hours on low (you could also do 3.5 hours on high)
- Use 2 forks to shred chicken
- Melt 1 Tbsp. butter in the microwave and add garlic
- Cut french bread horizontally and then into sandwich size pieces
- Coat each piece of french bread with melted garlic butter
- Broil bread for 6 minutes (or until brown and toasted)
- I used an immersion blender on the second half of the BBQ sauce to make it smoother before putting it on the sandwich
- Make your sandwich with tons of chicken, even more sauce and a piece of provolone cheese. Don’t skip the cheese! I promise it’s worth it.
I’m a little sluggish this week being back at work and in the city, but this dinner really helped me perk up a little! I still have some leftover cherries, so I’ll have yet another Michigan Cherry recipe very soon ;)