BBQ Sauce

Any respectable BBQ sauce balances sweetness and spice with a touch of sour, all the better to enhance the meatiness of hunks of slow-smoked beef, pork, or chicken. The problem is that most recipes rely on various forms of sugar as their base: commercial ketchup (a.k.a., corn syrup), molasses, brown sugar, honey, and in one classic version, three cups of cola! In this sauce, a humbly-sweet, dried date, sugar-free apple sauce, and the natural sugars in tomato paste do the trick.