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Cherry Noble BBQ Sauce is a uniquely-delicious homemade barbecue sauce that is fantastic on chicken wings (and more)! One taste and you’ll want to make it all summer long!
Jack and I are always truly honored when someone we meet is willing to share family recipes with us. Such is the case with today’s Cherry Noble BBQ Sauce.
The story behind this delicious barbecue sauce
Cherry Noble is the great grandmother of Shawn Coffin, co-owner of ShennCorp*, a landscape company that we’ve just hired to do some work for us at a cabin we built last year up in Maine.
We met Shawn earlier this month to discuss the project, and during the conversation, we happened to mention that we run a recipe blog. Turns out Shawn likes to dabble in the kitchen a bit – and he and Jack started trading recipe secrets.
Shawn was generous enough to share this fantastic BBQ sauce that he named after his great gram Cherry Noble and gave us permission to share it with all of you here on A Family Feast.
A version of this started out as the sauce for Cherry’s baked beans recipe – and Shawn had the idea that it would make a really great barbecue sauce. He was 100% right!
This Cherry Noble BBQ Sauce is sweet, deep and rich – and really different than any other homemade barbecue sauce we’ve tasted. It’s easy to make and thickens up nicely as it cools.
This BBQ sauce is also made from ingredients you might already have in your kitchen – tomato paste, molasses, brown sugar, a little grape jelly, cider vinegar and an interesting mix of spices and seasonings including ground ginger, dry mustard, plus onion and garlic powders. It’s a must-try sauce to slather on some grilled chicken wings for this weekend’s Memorial Day cookout – and we think it would be fantastic slathered on ribs too.
A little more about Cherry Noble & her family
Cherry Noble was the granddaughter of Alanson Mellon “Mellie” Dunham – a farmer and accomplished snowshoe maker who outfitted Commodore Robert Peary’s North Pole Expedition. Later in his life, Mellie won a fiddling contest in Lewiston, Maine and become known as Maine’s Champion Fiddler. Mellie was invited to play the fiddle for Henry Ford – and the publicity from that visit helped launch a musical tour with a vaudeville act around the country for several years. You can read more here.
Shawn told us that Cherry was Mellie’s piano player after he became famous. To this day, it’s clear that Shawn still has fond memories of visiting Granny Cherry as a child – where she played the piano for him, and told him stories as they sat on the swing on the front porch of the family farmhouse. (I think family stories like this make this BBQ Sauce recipe even more special and delicious!)
*ShennCorp is the newly formed partnership between ESC Enterprises and Garden Goddess. You can see some of their recent projects on Facebook, and if you’re ever in the need for landscape work in Western Maine, check them out!
You may enjoy these other homemade BBQ Sauce recipes:
- Mozelle’s Barbecue Sauce
- Bourbon Peach BBQ Sauce
- Bourbon Barbecue Sauce
- Dr Pepper BBQ Sauce
- Homemade BBQ Sauce
We love seeing what you made! Tag us on Instagram at @afamilyfeast or hashtag #afamilyfeast so we can see your creations!
Cherry Noble BBQ Sauce
Ingredients
2 6–ounce cans tomato paste
1 cup molasses
1 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup grape jelly
2 cups water
2 tablespoons cider vinegar
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon dry mustard powder (we used Colman‘s)
1 teaspoon dry ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
Instructions
Place all ingredients into a sauce pan and bring to a boil, then lower to a fast simmer and cook 15 minutes uncovered. Use immediately or refrigerate until needed.
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Notes
We show BBQ chicken wings in our photos above – here’s how we made them:
Sprinkle 3 pounds of chicken drumettes and wingettes with two teaspoons of kosher salt and one tablespoon of freshly ground black pepper along with ¼ cup of vegetable oil.
Grill on oiled grill grates over high heat on both sides to crisp the skin. Move to a cool side of the grill and close the cover and cook for about ten minutes until cooked through and tender. Mix a little hot sauce (optional) in with the BBQ sauce and brush on about 1 ½ cups onto both sides of the wings and cook back on the hot side of the grill just long enough to get a charred skin.
Once the sauce goes on, be careful not to burn. They will only need a minute or two to get the BBQ skin charred.
So glad you enjoyed the sauce Emme!
Your recipe for Chinese bbq pork calls for 5 spice powder. How do I make this or where can I buy it. What spices are in it
Thank you can’t wait to try this recipe.
Hi Jean – Many supermarkets sell it in the spice section (McCormick brand) or you can buy it here: https://amzn.to/2ECg5KO
It’s a mix of cinnamon, fennel seeds, star anise, Sichuan peppercorn and cloves.