Nutritarian BBQ Sauce (2024)

Sauces just make life yummier! But when you’re on a no-salt, no-sugar, no-oil nutritarian diet it is completely daunting to find any sauces that will “work” at your local grocery store.

Enter this easy nutritarian BBQ sauce recipe that you can make with your high-speed blender and a little bit of time on the stove!

So, what’s the problem with store-bought BBQ sauce?

Well, sugar, salt, and more sugar.

That’s right, BBQ sauce has a lot of sugar–you know, the straight-up white, processed sugar (that is going to kill you early and Dr. Fuhrman recommends you avoid at all costs)!

My favorite Trader Joe’s Bold & Smoky Kansas City BBQ sauce has “sugar” listed as it’s second ingredient, followed by molasses.

According to Wikipedia, molasses is a by-product of the refining of sugarcane or sugar beets into sugar. That’s even more, you guessed it, sugar.

So, yeah… there’s a whole lotta sugar going on in store-bought BBQ sauce–just grab yours right now and check it out!

There’s also salt.

Just 2 tablespoons of my old favorite BBQ sauce has 420 mg of sodium–that’s almost half of Dr. Fuhrman’s 1,000 mg recommended intake.

Okay, so now you definitely know that you need to stay away from store-bought BBQ sauce…

Are you ready to make all your nutritarian BBQ sauce dreams come true?

After struggling through my first 6 weeks on Dr. Fuhrman’s Eat to Live nutritarian plan, I’ve learned that making your own sauces, dips and condiments makes a huge psychological difference and sets you up to be a veggie-eating machine!

You’re going to eat more of the good stuff if you take a little bit of time to make your own sauces.

This BBQ sauce is prefect to slather over tofu or cauliflower and bake in the oven, grilled veggie kabobs for those summer cookouts to come or drizzled over your favorite beans for some extra flavor!

So, how do you get that sweet BBQ sauce flavor without using sugar or molasses?

Two things: jelly & dates.

I used Trader Joe’s organic Superfruits Spread:

The flavor of this jelly is insane! Cherries, grape, blueberries and pomegranate make for a bold, deep taste.

If you don’t have a Trader Joe’s around just look for a fruit-juice-sweetened jelly. That just means no “sugar” listed in the ingredients.

Your jelly along with some super-quick-to-whip-up date puree is going to give you that sweet flavor you’re accustomed to in your BBQ sauce!

So, I get it, people like different kinds of BBQ sauce.

I’m going to do my best to explain how this BBQ tastes and which ingredients are supplying which flavors–you know, should you feel the need to modify!

The flavor of this nutritarian BBQ sauce is:

• bold
• bright
• slightly sweet
• smoky
• slightly spicy

The base of the sauce is tomato puree–I used the organic canned variety.

Date puree is added to supply some sweetness. Then the fruit-sweetened jelly is added for more sweetness, color and texture.

Apple cider and Dijon mustard brighten up the sauce and balance out the tomato flavor.

Finally, spices deliver that smokiness and traditional BBQ flavor you’re looking for.

Feel free to adjust the flavors as you see fit! I like to add extra apple cider vinegar for brightness and extra paprika for heat!

Please leave a comment if you give this BBQ recipe a try, I love getting your feedback!

Editor's Note

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