Pork Spareribs with Cranberry Pepper BBQ Sauce

This time of year cranberries are all over the markets almost as much as Turkey. Once a year people have their serving of cranberries and then forget about them for the rest of the year. By forgetting about cranberries you’re depriving yourself of some fantastic recipes. I’m not advocating you grab a can of the canned cranberry stuff, but rather try new recipes using fresh cranberries that are more than just a side at Thanksgiving. This Cranberry Pepper sauce is just one of many unique ways you can cranberries, so don’t be afraid to step outside your cranberry comfort zone.

The peppers that are used for this recipe are more for taste rather than heat. The first type of pepper I used was Pimento. Barely any heat to those little red guys! I’ve never met a person that thinks a pimento is too spicy. They are more sweet then heat. The other pepper I used for this recipe was a red Italian frying pepper. Again, more sweet then heat. This is not a spicy sauce, but rather tart because of lime and cranberries. It does really well to cut through the fattiness of pork ribs.  How tart is really up to you. I added 1/2 a cup of sugar in this recipe, but you can add more if you prefer a really sweet sauce instead of tart.

Combine the cranberries, the juice of one lime, peppers, apple cider, and water. Puree with an emulsion blender until smooth. If you don’t have an emulsion blender just use a regular blender. Add a pinch of salt and pepper to taste. Also, you can use the sauce immediately, but it would be better if you can leave it in the refrigerator overnight to let all the flavors come together.

cranberry bbq sauce

For this recipe I used Pork Spareribs. As I mentioned above, they work really well with this tart cranberry sauce. I slow grilled them using indirect heat with a combination of hickory wood chunks and charcoal. Keeping the ribs off the direct heat, bring the temperature of to 170 degrees Fahrenheit. Then let the ribs sit for 15 minutes before you slice them.

Pork Spareribs sizzling on a charcoal grill

What makes the BBQ sauce such a red color?

It’s the cranberries of course!

Pork Spareribs with Cranberry Pepper BBQ Sauce

Grilled Pork Spareribs with cranberry pepper bbq sauce

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Pork Spareribs with Cranberry Pepper BBQ Sauce

By searmarks – Serves: 2

Prep Time: 15 minutes – Cooking Time: 2 hour

A tart fiery red cranberry pepper sauce that goes great with pork.

Ingredients

• For sauce
• Juice of one lime
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 12 ounce bag of cranberries
• 2 Pimento Peppers
• 1 Italian Frying Pepper
• 2 cups Apple Cider
• 1 cup water
• Pinch of salt
• Pinch of pepper
• 1 4 or 5 pound slap pork spareribs

Instructions

1

Combine sauce ingredients in a sauce pan.

2

Simmer for 15 minutes.

3

Puree ingredients with emulsion blender until smooth.

4

Reduce sauce for another 10 minutes until desired consistency.

5

Take sauce off heat and let cool.

6

Grill ribs on indirect charcoal and wood heat.

7

Bring internal rib temperature up 170 degrees Fahrenheit.

8

Sauce ribs before serving.

Notes

Keep grill temperature between 225 to 250