Sweet & Tangy Barbecue

Growing up in Upstate South Carolina, I grew up eating arguably the best pulled pork barbecue in the United States. This Sweet & Tangy Barbecue recipe, while one of many barbecue recipes on my website and in my cookbooks, might be my best recreation of that South Carolina classic style yet!

This Sweet & Tangy Barbecue is one of my husband’s favorite things to have on hand for lunches. It’s sweet, but not overwhelmingly so. It’s tangy, a bit spicy, and has more of a vinegar and heat kick than I’ve used so far and I LIKE IT. I incorporated a few unique ingredients – namely balsamic vinegar and Dijon mustard – to give the barbecue just a touch of something different and a hint of sophistication. The recipe makes plenty of sauce and the cooked chicken thighs I used shred up so finely! This barbecue is great served up in colorful bell pepper halves, low-carb wraps, or half of a Joseph’s pita – or over salad.

Barbecue varies SO much from region to region – and it even varies within a region itself! Therefore I won’t be surprised if some of you who consider yourselves to be experts in the realm of South Carolina barbecue taste this and find it to be different from what you’re used to, but I’m sure happy with how it turned out. If we’re honest, there are probably as many barbecue variants as there are cooks.

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Where it all began…

When I was in my teens I worked once a month at Yoder’s at Meece Mill in Pickens, South Carolina. A couple from my church owned the old grist mill and opened it to the public once a month to serve the best barbecue made with Elsie’s own secret sauce recipe. That barbecue will always stand out in my mind as the ultimate – the classic – the pinnacle of South Carolina sweet and tangy pulled pork barbecue. The Mill, as it’s affectionately known in the Upstate, is no longer open to the public except perhaps for catered private events, but that was where my food career started as I dished out barbecue, coleslaw, and baked beans or macaroni salad one Saturday a month and watched Elsie throw together concoctions that ALWAYS turned out. I’m pretty sure that’s where I got some of my confidence and optimism for recipe creation. If Elsie’s made-up recipes turned out, why wouldn’t mine?

Some notes on ingredients:

• Some balsamic vinegars are higher in natural sugars than others, so try to find one with 2 grams of sugar per serving or less. I like the deep, fruity notes it adds in this barbecue, but feel free to swap out another vinegar in its place.
• Let’s talk ketchup. NSA ketchup can be hard to find in stores, so the easiest option is probably just to make your own. There’s an easy recipe on page 482 of the Trim Healthy Mama Cookbook, and I’m sure you can find other homemade low-carb ketchup recipes online.
• Up to ¼ teaspoon molasses per serving is allowed on the THM plan for flavor. In this recipe it mimics a brown sugar flavor.

This is actually a no-special-ingredients recipe if you use the sugar-free ketchup recipe I suggested in the notes of the recipe and use a locally-sourced low-glycemic sweetener to taste in place of the THM Super Sweet Blend (and the sweetener in the ketchup recipe)!

A (long) note on fuel type and macros:

This recipe has been one of the most frustrating I’ve typed up in a long time. The recipe itself was relatively easy to make and turned out great; I’m super excited about the flavor. Calculating the nutritional information was a different story. (I’ve recently made a point of adding nutritional information to my recipes so they’re more useful to a broader demographic even though Trim Healthy Mama focuses on ingredients, not numbers.)

I had a terrible time calculating accurate nutritional information for this recipe because of trying to make calculations using pre-cooked meat and a ketchup recipe from a cookbook. Once I finally figured out the ballpark nutritional info, the carbs were higher than what is allowed for THM S and FP guidelines (10g net carbs per serving). All the ingredients I used were within THM guidelines for S and FP, so I’m personally not going to worry about the discrepancy (but neither would I eat this barbecue every day). I’ve always heard and gone by the premise that ingredients trump numbers, and I personally don’t count my macros and have done just fine on plan. I’ve decided not to include the nutritional info with this recipe since I’m not sure if it was accurate or not anyway (I got many different counts from the software I was using) and didn’t want to confuse anyone. If it makes you feel better, call this recipe a crossover if using a fatty meat or use shredded chicken breast and add a moderate carb source for an E meal.

Speaking of fuel types, here’s how it shakes out if you just go by ingredients, not numbers. (This is how I personally view this recipe and how I’ll be “marketing” it.) Since the only major fat source in the sauce is the 2 tablespoons of butter spread over 10-12 servings, you could actually make this barbecue a Fuel Pull by using shredded chicken or turkey breast. Dark meat poultry or pork will make this barbecue a THM S. I haven’t tried using the sauce on its own, but if you do that, it’s a Fuel Pull as long as you stick to 1/6th of the batch (or less) per serving.

Note: there IS such a thing as “carb stacking,” which is mentioned in one (or both) of the Trim Healthy Mama plan books. Carb stacking occurs when you use a few ingredients that are acceptable for S and FP settings, but each ingredient has a few carbs so the carbs stack up, taking you over the limit for an S or FP meal. This can occur with things like Greek yogurt, Wasa crackers, and low-carb wraps that are higher in carbs than your typical S/FP ingredients. Tomatoes are much of the culprit in this recipe, and since one ingredient was responsible for most of the carbs and not a combination of multiple ingredients (although some of the condiments I used would have a carb or two per serving), I wasn’t sure whether this was actually “carb stacking” or not. Tomatoes are one of those foods that are a bit hard to categorize. They’re not a non-starchy veggie, but they’re allowed in an S or FP setting “in moderate amounts.” I believe 1/2 a large raw tomato or 1 cup of tomato sauce per serving is acceptable in an S or FP setting, and I don’t think the carbs are usually counted (as per an admin on the main THM Facebook group). So you see my dilemma when trying to reconcile the nutritional information and THM fuel type. 😛 My life is much easier if I don’t count…haha. I’ll just call this a good barbecue recipe and leave it at that.

I personally used shredded boiled chicken thighs to make this because I had leftover meat from another recipe. The dark meat chicken made some of the finest shreds I have ever had in barbecue and was SO good. I just boiled chicken thighs in a pot of water until they were falling off the bone, then took the meat off the bones and saved the broth for something else. It’s a bit labor intensive, but chicken thighs are usually really cheap and the result was amazing flavor and texture.

Coming soon…

Two unique breakfast options: a Mango Baked Oatmeal that is more like a delicious oat cake, and a bulk mix recipe for a “fiber porridge” that will…um…get things moving in the morning.

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5.0 from 1 reviews

Sweet & Tangy Barbecue

 

Author:

Briana Thomas

Recipe type: Entrée

Cuisine: THM S or FP, Low Glycemic

Serves: 10-12

Prep Time: 15 mins

Cook time: 20 mins

Total time: 35 mins

Print

 

This Sweet & Tangy Barbecue is the perfect star for a Trim Healthy Mama-friendly picnic! It's low glycemic and South Carolina inspired. Check the notes section below for allergy info (gluten, egg, dairy, and nut free options) as well as more detailed notes about the THM fuel type and nutritional information.

Ingredients

• 3 lb. shredded cooked chicken, pork, or turkey (weighed after cooking)
• -
• 2 tablespoons salted butter
• 1 tablespoon dried minced onion
• 1 tablespoon minced garlic
• -
• 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
• -
• 4 cups no-sugar-added ketchup
• ⅔ cup apple cider vinegar
• ¼ cup Dijon mustard
• ¼ cup reduced-sodium soy sauce
• 3 tablespoons sriracha
• 3 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
• 1 tablespoon + 2 teaspoons each chili powder, onion powder
• 1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon THM Super Sweet Blend
• 2 teaspoons molasses
• 1 teaspoon liquid smoke
• ½ teaspoon each cayenne pepper, black pepper

Instructions

1. In a large kettle (I used a soup kettle) on the stovetop, toast the minced onion and garlic in the butter until golden brown. Add the balsamic vinegar to deglaze the pan, then add the last section of ingredients and whisk together to complete the sauce. Feel free to tweak the sweetness, heat, acidity, and salt levels to your own personal taste. I didn’t add any salt because I felt it wasn’t needed.
2. Add the shredded meat of your choice to the sauce, stir to combine, and heat through. Stir occasionally to continue shredding the meat to a finer consistency. Serve.
3. This barbecue is great served up in colorful bell pepper halves, a low-carb wrap, or half of a Joseph’s pita, or over salad.

Notes

-Since the only major fat source in the sauce is the 2 tablespoons of butter spread over 10-12 servings, you could actually make this barbecue a Fuel Pull by using shredded chicken or turkey breast. Dark meat poultry or pork will make this barbecue a THM S. I haven’t tried using the sauce on its own, but if you do that, it’s a Fuel Pull as long as you stick to one-sixth of the batch (or less) per serving. I personally used shredded boiled chicken thighs to make this because I had leftover meat from another recipe. The dark meat chicken made some of the finest shreds I have ever had in barbecue and was SO good. I just boiled chicken thighs in a pot of water until they were falling off the bone, then took the meat off the bones and saved the broth for something else. It’s a bit labor intensive, but chicken thighs are usually really cheap and the result was amazing flavor and texture.
-Some balsamic vinegars are higher in natural sugars than others, so try to find one with 2 grams of sugar per serving or less. I like the deep, fruity notes it adds in this barbecue, but feel free to swap out another vinegar in its place.
-Let’s talk ketchup. NSA ketchup can be hard to find in stores, so the easiest option is probably just to make your own. There’s an easy recipe on page 482 of the Trim Healthy Mama Cookbook, and I’m sure you can find other homemade low-carb ketchup recipes online.
-Up to ¼ teaspoon molasses per serving is allowed on the THM plan for flavor. In this recipe it mimics a brown sugar flavor.
-I had a terrible time calculating accurate nutritional information for this recipe because of trying to make calculations using pre-cooked meat and a ketchup recipe from a cookbook. When I finally figured out the ballpark nutritional info, the carbs were higher than what is allowed for THM S and FP guidelines (10g net carbs per serving). All the ingredients I used were within THM guidelines for S and FP, so I’m personally not going to worry about the discrepancy (but neither would I eat this barbecue every day). I’ve always heard and gone by the premise that ingredients trump numbers, and I personally don’t count my macros and have done just fine on plan. I’ve decided not to include the nutritional info with this recipe since I’m not sure if it was accurate or not anyway (I got many different counts from the software I was using) and didn’t want to confuse anyone. If it makes you feel better, call this recipe a crossover if using a fatty meat or use shredded chicken breast and add a moderate carb source for an E meal.
ALLERGY INFO (for barbecue only, not serving accoutrements; always be sure to use non-contaminated ingredients for your particular allergy):
-Gluten Free: use non-contaminated ingredients and be sure to use gluten-free soy sauce (or an allergy-friendly alternative) and gluten-free Worcestershire sauce
-Egg Free: use an egg-free Dijon mustard brand
-Dairy Free: use a dairy-free Dijon mustard brand and substitute a dairy-free butter-flavored coconut oil for the butter
-Nut Free

3.5.3251

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