There’s a stretch of summer up in the Wyoming high country — usually the tail end of July into August — when the huckleberries come on, and if you know, you know. These aren’t something you plan a menu around weeks in advance. Huckleberries grow wild, tucked into the shade of the pines up around 5,000 to 8,000 feet, and they refuse to be domesticated. People have tried for decades to farm them like blueberries and it just doesn’t take. So every summer it’s the same deal: you go find them yourself, or you don’t get them.
I spent a good afternoon last August on a hillside above Bondurant with a coffee can rigged to my belt, moving from bush to bush at that slow, meditative crawl that huckleberry picking demands. It’s tedious and wonderful in equal measure. The berries are small and they hide, and you’re competing with the bears, who love them at least as much as you do. A couple hours of that and you’ve maybe got enough for a pie and a batch of something else. That’s the whole romance of it — the season is short, the picking is slow, and the payoff tastes like nothing else. If you can’t get up into the hills yourself, keep an eye on farmers markets and the roadside stands that pop up around the mountain towns in August. Folks who pick more than they can use will sell the extra, and it’s worth every penny.
This year I’ve been on a full-blown huckleberry kick — I just put up a batch of huckleberry margaritas that nearly ended me — and somewhere in the middle of it I started thinking about barbecue. Specifically, I started thinking about what would happen if I built a BBQ sauce around these berries. Turns out the answer is: something you’ll want to put on everything.
Why Huckleberry and BBQ Sauce Just Works
I know berries in barbecue sauce can sound like a gimmick. We’ve all seen the grape-jelly-and-chili-sauce meatball recipe at a potluck, and while I won’t knock it, that’s not what’s happening here. Huckleberries bring something grape jelly can’t: a deep, wild, almost musky berry flavor with a real backbone of tartness. And that tartness is the whole point.
Good barbecue is rich — fat, smoke, char, all of it piling up on your palate. A sauce needs to cut through that and reset your mouth so the next bite hits just as hard as the first. Vinegar does part of the job in any classic sauce, but the huckleberry does it with flavor attached. The acidity slices through the fat, the fruit stands up to the smoke, and you get this bright, tangy, slightly wild note riding on top of everything savory underneath. I’ve made berry sauces with blueberries before, and honestly, blueberries are too polite. They go sweet and one-dimensional when you cook them down. Huckleberries keep their edge. That edge is exactly what you want next to a rack of ribs.
Huckleberry BBQ Sauce
This makes about 2 cups, which is plenty for a couple racks of ribs or a big batch of chicken with some left over for the fridge. It comes together in about half an hour and doesn’t ask much of you beyond a little stirring.
What You’ll Need
- 2 cups fresh or frozen huckleberries
- 1 cup ketchup
- 1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
- 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
- 2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 1/2 small yellow onion, finely diced
- 1 tablespoon olive oil or butter (for sautéing)
- 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
- 1/4 teaspoon cayenne (more if you like heat)
- 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- A splash of bourbon — about 2 tablespoons (optional, but I’d encourage it)
- Salt, to taste
How to Make It
- Sweat the aromatics. Warm the oil or butter in a heavy saucepan over medium heat. Add the diced onion and cook it down for 4 or 5 minutes until it’s soft and translucent, then add the garlic and give it another minute — just until it smells good, not until it browns.
- Cook down the berries. Add the huckleberries and let them go for about 5 minutes, stirring now and then and pressing on them with the back of your spoon. They’ll burst and release their juice and the whole pot will turn a gorgeous deep purple.
- Build the sauce. Stir in the ketchup, brown sugar, cider vinegar, Worcestershire, smoked paprika, cayenne, and black pepper. If you’re using the bourbon, add it now. Bring it up to a low simmer.
- Simmer until thick. Drop the heat to low and let it bubble gently for 15 to 20 minutes, stirring occasionally so it doesn’t catch on the bottom. It’s ready when it coats the back of a spoon and holds a line when you drag your finger through it.
- Blend it smooth. Take it off the heat and blend until smooth — an immersion blender right in the pot is the easiest way to do this. If you like a little rustic texture, pulse it just a few times and leave some berry bits intact. I go back and forth depending on my mood.
- Taste and adjust. Too tart? A little more brown sugar. Too flat? Another splash of vinegar. Want more heat? Cayenne. Season with salt until it tastes like it should, then you’re done.
A Few Tips
- Frozen berries are your friend. If you don’t have fresh huckleberries — which, let’s be honest, is most of the year — frozen work beautifully here. Don’t even thaw them; just toss them in the pot straight from the freezer and give them a couple extra minutes to break down.
- It keeps. Stored in a sealed jar in the fridge, this sauce holds for about a week. If you want it to last longer, it cans up nicely in a water bath, and a few jars of homemade huckleberry BBQ sauce make a genuinely great gift come the holidays.
- It’s also a glaze. Brush it on during the last 10 or 15 minutes of cooking and it’ll caramelize into a sticky, glossy lacquer. Just don’t put it on too early — the sugar will scorch over direct heat.
What to Put It On
The short answer is pork and chicken, and the shorter answer is ribs. A rack of baby backs finished with this sauce is about as good as summer eating gets — the fat and smoke of the ribs against that tart berry glaze is a genuinely memorable bite. Smoked chicken thighs are right there with it; the dark meat holds up to the bold sauce without getting lost. A pork loin, which can lean a little bland on its own, comes alive with it, whether you glaze it in the last stretch of the roast or spoon it over slices at the table.
And don’t overlook a burger. A spoonful of this in place of your regular ketchup, maybe with some sharp cheddar and a few pickled onions, turns a weeknight burger into something you’ll think about later. I’ve also been known to just dunk a piece of warm bread in it. Speaking of which — if you’ve got a loaf of Dutch oven sourdough going, tearing off a crusty hunk and dragging it through the leftover sauce in the pot is a private pleasure I recommend without reservation.
A Couple of Gear Notes
You can make this with what’s in your kitchen, but a few things make it easier. An immersion blender is the single most useful tool here — being able to blend the sauce right in the pot, no transferring hot liquid to a countertop blender, is worth its weight. I do everything in a heavy cast iron skillet or saucepan, which holds steady heat and keeps things from scorching on a low simmer. And if you plan to store or gift your sauce, a set of squeeze bottles or mason jars makes it look like you meant to do this all along.
Go Get Some Berries
If there’s a window to make this, it’s now through the end of August. Get up into the mountains if you can, hit the farmers markets and roadside stands if you can’t, and if you strike gold on a good patch, freeze what you don’t use so you can pull off a batch of this in December when you need a little taste of summer. That’s exactly what I do — a couple bags of huckleberries in the freezer are a small insurance policy against a long Wyoming winter.
If you make this sauce, I want to hear about it. What did you put it on? And more importantly — where’d you find your berries? (You don’t have to tell me your exact spot. I understand the code.) Show me your huckleberry haul and your barbecue over on Instagram at @wyofood or find us on Facebook at Wyo Food. Happy picking, and happy grilling.
— Sean