Spiced Plum Sauce for Canning

 When we were house shopping, we knew a couple things that were non-negotiable. First, it had to be out in the county with no HOA's. I was tired of living in town with neighbors right there. I didn't want neighbors so close that I can watch them eat dinner from my living room. Secondly, we wanted at least an acre,  we are huge into gardening and I wanted to create my dream garden and  have enough room for a few animals, if we chose. While I wish we would have been able to buy 30 acres and have all the space, for all the things. We found our home which I fell in love with as soon as we walked in the door for a showing. It's a split level farm house built in 1974, on 1.25 acres, with the bonus of an established orchard. It was perfect!

Moving on to the orchard. Having all of these fruit trees has made me get creative with preserving. My little homesteading heart, cannot handle wasting the fruit! When I get to the point where I can't physically do anymore fruit from one of my tree's I allow others to come and pick free of charge, because why let it go to waste when someone else could use it?  We do all your typical things, pies, canned pie filling, dried fruit, freeze dried fruit etc. etc. etc. My plums however had me stumped! They're great to eat fresh and are great to freeze dry but there HAD to be more I could do with them. Then I came across Spiced Plum Sauce and y'all let me tell you, my life hasn't been the same! 😍

 

Spiced plum sauce is an Asian cuisine sauce. It is a mix between a sweet and sour sauce and a BBQ sauce. It is to die for! You have ginger, garlic, apple cider vinegar. All these wonderful notes mixing together, that make your kitchen smell phenomenal, all while making you crave egg rolls. Now that I've rambled let me share the recipe! I found this recipe on a An Oregon Cottage's blog, which I will link. She has some really great recipes! I Double her recipe due to the amount of plums I have, so this is a big batch recipe. Feel free the 1/2 if needed!I also tweaked the amount of seasonings to our taste. Just the dry seasonings so that it doesn't mess up the ratio for acidity. Keeping it safe to water bath.

A food processor will be your best friend here, you can hand chop if you don't have one. My tree is Santa Rosa plums and they worked out great, it does take a little more time to thicken. Also I wanted a BBQ sauce type texture, so after it had cooked down for about 45 minutes I took my immersion blender to the the pot and made it smooth. When you first add your ingredients don't be afraid, mine was like a grey white color but as it cooks it will turn that beautiful red, or purple color depending on the type of plums you use!

Spiced Plum Sauce

16 cups chopped plums

1.5 cups Chopped white onion

2 cups apple cider vinegar

3.5 Cups brown sugar

2.5 Cups white sugar

2.5 TBSP ground mustard

3 TBSP ground ginger

4 cloves of Garlic minced

2 TBSP salt

2 tsp cinnamon

Red pepper flakes to taste*

Instructions

1. Chop your plums in a food processor, add them to a heavy bottom stock pot. Chop onions in the food processor and add to plums.

2. Add the remaining ingredients to pot with plums and onions. Bring to a boil and simmer until thickened. About an hour to 1.5 hours.

 Freshly in the pot

After cooking for 1 hour. Look at the color! You can let it continue this way if you want a chunkier sauce.

3. If you want a smooth sauce like BBQ, take and immersion blender to that pot!  

4. Ladle sauce into hot, sterilized jars. Leave 1/4" head space. Attach lids and rings. Process in water bath for 20 minutes.

5. Remove jars from water bath allow to fully cool. Then check your lids to make sure they sealed. Label and store. This will last for 18 months on the shelf.

If you make this recipe please comment and let me know how you liked it! Share with others. 

Happy canning!