This is an easy Cherry BBQ Sauce recipe using cherry preserves. The preserves combined with Port wine, citrus, cinnamon and cloves brings a tart, sweet, sticky and savory glaze to grilled chicken.
A wonderful twist on traditional BBQ sauce. Cherry bbq sauce is layered with flavors that will truly impress. As you savor each bite, you’ll start thinking about everything in sight that you could possibly drizzle this on.
Tart, sweet, sticky AND savory, it would be a perfect pair with duck or pork. Our first introduction was on some cinnamon cured smoked chicken.
This Cherry BBQ Sauce is simply an awesome Summer recipe. It’s easy to make and with natural flavors that shine, I can’t imagine a bottled cherry BBQ sauce that can come close in flavor.
Let’s take a look.
Ingredients you’ll need:
- Ruby Port
- Chicken Broth
- Cherry Preserves
- Spices: Red Pepper Flakes, Cinnamon and Ground Cloves.
- Sweet Chili Sauce: Found on the Asian aisle.
- Orange Marmalade
- Corn Starch: For thickening.
- Oranges and Lemons: For both the juice and zest.
Ingredients Swaps and Subs
- Ruby Port will bring a rich deep fortified wine. If you happen to have a Tawny Port on hand, it most certainly will fill in for the Ruby Port. You can also substitute a rich red wine. Shiraz would be an excellent choice here, or Chianti or Merlot. If you want to make this without alcohol, just increase the amount of chicken broth.
- Corn Starch: Substitute rice flower or arrowroot powder.
- Orange Marmalade: Substitute ¼ cup of frozen orange juice concentrate.
Step by Step Instructions
Be sure to see the recipe card below for complete ingredients and instructions.
- Step 1: Combine chicken broth, cherry preserves, orange juice, lemon juice, zests, cinnamon and cloves in a saucepan and mix well. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Simmer for 8 minutes or until mixture is reduced to 1 ½ cups. Stirring occasionally.
- Step 2: Whisk the port and cornstarch in a small bowl until blended.
- Step 3: Whisk the port/cornstarch mixture, orange marmalade and chili sauce into the broth mixture. Bring to a simmer over medium heat, whisking constantly. Simmer for five minutes or until the flavors blend and the sauce is slightly thickened. Season with red pepper flakes, salt and pepper. Done!
How To Use This Cherry BBQ Sauce Recipe For Chicken
Cherry BBQ Sauce will go very well with lamb or pork. However, our tradition is to serve with chicken on the grill. For this Cinnamon Cured Smoked Chicken to be exact.
A simple chicken brine will bring this recipe to greatness.
Chicken Brine Recipe
- 4 cups water
- ¼ cup kosher salt
- ¼ cup brown sugar
- 8 bone-in skin-on chicken thighs
- 4 chicken drumsticks
- 1 small onion, thinly sliced
- 2 thin lemon slice and 2 thin orange slices. Just use slices from the oranges and lemons from the cherry bbq sauce.
- ½ teaspoon cinnamon
- 2 cups cherry wood chips
How To: Whisk water, salt and brown sugar in a large bowl until the brown sugar dissolves. Add the chicken, onion, lemon and orange slices, and cinnamon. Marinate, covered with plastic wrap, in the refrigerator for one to three hours. Do not marinate longer than three hours.
Adding Cherry Wood Smoke Flavor to Grilled Chicken
I am in no way an accomplished “smoker” but it’s so easy to add a smoked nuance to grilled chicken. And by using your gas grill.
Purchase a bag of cherry wood chips.
- Combine the wood chips with enough water to cover in a bowl. Let stand for one hour and then drain.
- Preheat grill on medium high heat. Place wood chips in a foil packet and don’t seal the top.
- Place the packet under gas grill grates or on the coals (if using a charcoal grill) five minutes before grilling process begins and cover the grill.
- Drain the chicken, discard marinade. Grill chicken for 10 minutes. Turn chicken over and grill another ten minutes. Turn the chicken again this time basting a few times and cook for five minutes. Turn chicken again and cook another five minutes, basting with the Cherry BBQ Sauce. Chicken should be grilled through and an instant read meat thermometer should read 165 degrees.
Pro Tip: Once you drain the chicken and discard the marinade, use a paper towel and pat the chicken pieces dry. This will insure that once those dryer chicken pieces hit those hot grill grates that they’ll immediately start the searing and browning process.
Cherry BBQ Sauce FAQ’s
Store any unused bbq sauce in the refrigerator in an air-tight container for up to a week.
Aside from chicken, this Cherry BBQ Sauce would make a delicious sauce for beef ribs, pork ribs, or grilled lamb chops. Try serving an appetizer of meatballs drizzled with this sauce = wow.
Cinnamon and cloves are a natural combo for spicy Southwestern cuisine. If you want to make this a spicy version, add 1 teaspoon of New Mexico Chile Powder of Ancho Chili Powder.
Recipe for Cherry BBQ Sauce
I hope you’ll give this Cherry Barbecue Sauce a try. It’s simply a wonderful cherry sauce for grilled chicken, and will give you a pleasant change from the expected traditional BBQ sauce.
Related Recipes
And if you’re looking for even more grilling ideas, don’t miss my Grilling Category, you’ll find lots of great Summer recipes including the most popular on my site for Italian Flank Steak.
If you liked this recipe, please leave a star ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ rating in the recipe card below and leave a comment. I always appreciate your feedback and hearing how everything went.
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Cherry BBQ Sauce Recipe For Chicken
Ingredients
- For The Cherry BBQ Sauce
- 1 cup chicken broth
- ⅓ cup cherry preserves
- ⅓ cup orange juice
- ¼ cup lemon juice
- ½ teaspoon grated lemon zest
- ½ teaspoon grated orange zest
- ½ teaspoon cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon ground cloves
- ½ Cup ruby port
- 2 teaspoon cornstarch
- ¼ Cup orange marmalade
- 1 Tablespoon chili sauce
- ⅛ teaspoon red pepper flakes
- Salt and pepper to taste
- For The Cinnamon Cured Smoked Chicken
- 4 cups water
- ¼ cup kosher salt
- ¼ cup brown sugar light or dark
- 8 chicken thighs bone in, skin on
- 4 chicken drumsticks
- 1 small onion thin sliced
- 2 thin lemon slice and 2 thin orange slices.
- ½ teaspoon cinnamon
- 2 cups cherry wood chips
Instructions
- Combine the broth, preserves, orange juice, lemon juice, zests, cinnamon and cloves in a saucepan and mix well. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Boil for 8 minutes or until mixture is reduced to 1 ½ cups. Stirring occasionally.
- Whisk the port and cornstarch in a small bowl until blended.
- Whisk the port/cornstarch mixture, orange marmalade and chili sauce into the sauce mix in the sauce pan.
- Bring to a simmer over medium heat, whisking constantly. Simmer for 5 minutes or until the flavors blend and the sauce is slightly thickened.
- Season with red pepper flakes, salt and pepper. Serve warm or at room temperature.
- For The Grilled Chicken
- Combine the wood chips with enough water to cover in a bowl. Let stand for one hour and then drain.
- Preheat grill on medium high heat. Place wood chips in a foil packet and don't seal the top.
- Place the packet under gas grill grates or on the coals (if using a charcoal grill) five minutes before grilling process begins and cover the grill.
- Drain the chicken, discard marinade. Grill chicken for 10 minutes. Turn chicken over and grill another 10 minutes. Turn the chicken again this time basting a few times and cook for 5 minutes. Turn chicken again and cook another 5 minutes, basting with the cherry bbq sauce. Chicken should be grilled through and an instant read meat thermometer should read 165 degrees.
Nutrition
Cherry BBQ Sauce Recipe For Chicken …It’s What’s for Dinner.
This recipe was first published May of 2012 and updated August of 2022 with new photos and step by step instructions.
Why Trust These Recipes? Lea Ann Brown has lived, worked and played in Colorado for 45 years. She has immersed herself in the Colorado Culinary space, is a Culinary School Graduate and publishes her Colorado food Blog, Cooking On The Ranch.
What a great looking BBQ sauce! So much flavor. And really good stuff. 🙂 Thanks!
Yum. this will go on our grill and table asap!
Wow, that is one fruity bbq sauce, I like it a lot. For the record, I got to where I am today by using wood chips in a foil pack on a gas grill…..it’s a gateway drug, lol.
I can tell I’m already addicted! 🙂
Oh it looks delicious. I just had some pork chops last night and this would have gone perfectly with them. I’ll try it with the chicken breasts that are waiting in my freezer.
Ben, I had it on pork chops as soon as the chicken was consumer. Worked great. And actually the original recipe called for this to be served on grilled Chicken breasts. Thanks so much for stopping by and the comment.
Your cherry bbq sauce sounds very interesting but I thought your marinade was unique too. I think I will give the marinade a try.
Thanks for bringing that up. I thought the brine was very interesting, but didn’t talk much about it … mainly since I’m a brining dummy. 🙂 I sent you an email explaining.
I love complex BBQ sauces! The citrus and cherry…what a perfect match for chicken!
Sounds divine!
Thanks Susan.
This BBQ sauce sounds wonderful! People who have smokers are SERIOUS BBQers! I’d try the chips in foil too.
I’m sticking to the chips in foil for now Susan. I’m on your side.
That barbecue sauce looks like a winner. Happy smoking!
One of these days I’ll inhale and buy a smoker. 🙂
I did a ‘sauce off’ a couple of years ago; I made two BBQ sauces and a couple of platters of ribs and then had my guests vote for their favorite sauce. One was a bourbon/molasses/cumin mixture I assumed would be a surefire winner as I put together the elements but no one was more surprised than me at how much we loved the sweet and hot cherry sauce. Yours is totally different from mine; now I’m thinking I need to do another sauce-off of the cherry kind!
Barbara, I’m sure you saw that this came from one of the Jr. League cookbooks. It really was flavorful. It really has piqued my interest in trying less traditional recipes. Yum.
I’ve been wanting to try making a cherry bbq sauce for a while now.. I think I just found my inspiration!!
Hope you like it Jenn.
WOW! I can’t wait to try this recipe! I’m always looking for new spins on bbq sauce- definitely going to pin this!
Thanks for the Pin Robyn and hope you enjoy the sauce.
ummmm sounds delish!!!!
Thanks Jane
A journey of a thousand miles begins with the first steps – way to go. looks like you kicked off the season with a bang. If you can get then, cherry wood chips shoul work well with this.
Thanks Larry. You never know, a real smoker might be in my future. 🙂
Love all the flavors in that sauce. I bet it was great with the chicken. We all start out as Kinders when it comes to something new… nothing wrong with that 🙂
I agree Karen. I was pretty proud of my first smoking adventure. At least the result.
Yummy!! All that citrus, cherry, peppers and wine? Swoon-worthy ingredients and I can’t wait to try this on some chicken. LOL about being a kindergarten smoker – those guys do make it a little intimidating, but you stepped right up! 😉
Intimidating to say the least. I read some of their posts and I’m just shaking my head in bewilderment.
Oh, how delicious! Great flavor combination!
Thanks Marina.