Mango Barbecue Sauce is sweet and heady with the flavor of ripe mangoes, smoky from chili and spices and tangy enough to fire up your taste buds.

Summer is the time for Barbecue, right? Show me someone who’s not a BBQ fan? All you wanna do is fire up your backyard grill and load it up with some marinated goodies. Don’t be disheartened if you are vegetarian or vegan. Barbecue sauce isn’t just meant for carnivores.

So how can you use this mango barbecue sauce? Marinate some tofu or paneer steaks in this sauce. Slather it on corn on the cob or burgers or wraps. Use it as a dipping sauce for potato wedges or home fries. Or use it for some yummy pulled jackfruit sliders (recipe coming up). I even used it on tacos.

I made a grilled cheese sandwich with this sauce and it was totally awesome! You just need to use your imagination.

So how do you make this mango barbecue sauce? It’s pretty easy but does need a bit of patience. Just enough to let the sauce simmer and come together. You cannot be shy of sugar. You need it to get the right taste and consistency.

Plenty of mango barbecue sauce recipes also had a base of tomato. That seemed a bit weird to me. I preferred to use mango only as the base, and it worked really well.

When I think barbecue, I think smoky food. So the smoky flavor generally comes from the smoker, from wood chips like hickory or mesquite. That’s not happening here, nor do I have access to liquid smoke. So I used the next best thing – chipotle chilies and smoked paprika.

Both the smoked chilies and the smoked paprika added a depth of flavor and also added plenty of heat. I have never used molasses before. if you are familiar with molasses, you can replace part of the brown sugar with them. I used a special kind of black jaggery I got from Goa. It’s literally black in color and has a strong fermented flavor. I think this added a lot of nice flavor but not much sweetness. Adding white sugar is inevitable.

Once you gather all the ingredients together in your sauce pan, you have to keep stirring and be patient. Simmer the sauce until it coats the back of the spoon. I blended the sauce after it was done to get a velvety smooth barbecue sauce. You can leave it chunky if you like.

Mangoes! I used Alphonso mangoes because they are in season. You can use any ripe mango which is available to you. Or you can use canned mango pulp from any Indian grocery store or online retailers like Amazon.

Mango Barbecue Sauce Recipe

Try making this mango barbecue sauce this summer. It’s going to liven up grilling season, and be the highlight of any barbecue party or picnic. Try my other mango recipes like Mango Daal with turmeric or Mango Infused Chili Paneer.