plum syrup and plum grilling sauce

And so, after making plum sauce and plum jam and plum galette and plum cake, my plum supply was dwindling. Finally.

Dwindling but not gone, that is. Luckily, I found another recipe to use up the rest of the plums. This one, happily, makes two different products at the same time! And it's easy! I promise!


Using a big pile of plums, you cook them for a bit, and strain out the syrup to store for use on pancakes and whatnot. Then you take the leftover plum solids, add a few more ingredients and puree it into a sauce for grilling ribs, chicken, pork, or whatever else you like to put on your grill.

Plum Syrup and Plum Grilling sauce
(from neighborhoodfruit.com)


3 pounds very ripe plums
1-2 cups sugar
1 jalapeno pepper
1-2 teaspoons salt
1 red onion
1 Tablespoon olive oil


First, we make the syrup. Take all the plums and mush out, smoosh out the pits. Don't worry about how much you destroy them in the process, it's all getting pureed later. Just get the pits out the best you can, and save all the juice, pulp, and skins.


Add some of the sugar to the plums in a large pot, and simmer it all for about 15-20 minutes. If it is dry, you can add water. If your plums were super ripe, they should be juicy enough, though. While it simmers, you can add more sugar if you like. I used about 1 cup total, and it tasted great. (My plums were extremely sweet and ripe when I started.)


After 20 minutes or so, turn off the heat and let it cool a bit. Place a colander into a large bowl, and strain out the syrup. 

Now, we make the grilling sauce.


Meanwhile, chop the onion and caramelize it in a pan with the olive oil. 


Add the cooked onions, the plum solids, the pepper, and the salt to a blender. Puree it all until it is smooth. Voila! You're done! It's a great sauce to grill with!


You can keep both the sauce and the syrup in the fridge to use up int he next few weeks. If, like me, though, you have too much food in your fridge and you want to save it for future use, let's can it.

Pour both into your jars, and be sure to label which is which!


If you need to read about how to can, I suggest this document.

If you already know about canning, here is a chart for how long to process it:



( I couldn't find the processing time for plum syrup, but every other syrup I found was 10 minutes for pints or quarts at 0-1,000 feet, 15 minutes at 1,001-6,000 feet, so that is what I went with.)

Table 1. Recommended process time for Fruit Purees in a boiling-water canner.
		Process Time at Altitudes of
Style of Pack	Jar Size	0 - 1,000 ft	1,001 - 6,000 ft	Above 6,000 ft
Hot	Pints or Quarts	15 min	20	25