Pork kebobs with a sticky cherry bbq sauce is my new favorite skewer for grilling. The pork that is used is from a boneless pork chop cut and the sticky bbq sauce is made from fresh summer cherries and all the usual bbq ingredients.
If you stress out about over cooking boneless pork chops, which is very easy to do, this recipe is just for you. The pork chops are cut into thick cubes and then marinate in the sticky bbq sauce before grilling. The grilling sears that bbq sauce right on the pork giving the outside a beautiful sweet crust.
The pork then gets added to skewers with some vegetables and grilled. In total, this dish takes 10 minutes to assemble, 15-30 minutes to marinate and 10 minutes on the grill. You can assemble the kebobs ahead of time (a day ahead) and when you are ready to cook them just follow the steps for grilling.
The ingredients for this dish are very simple. I always try to think of what most people have in the refrigerator or pantry when writing a recipe and this one is no different.
Ingredients you will need for these pork kebobs are:
- Boneless pork chops
- fresh or frozen cherries
- shallot or onion
- garlic
- red wine vinegar
- tomato paste
- worcestershire sauce
- vegetables of your choice for the skewers
All pretty simple and straight forward!
If you have had bbq pork before, this recipe is similar in idea. A good example is when you order pork fried rice at a Chinese restaurant and you see that pink outside on the pork. This kebob is just like that only we are using cherries for the flavor.
This recipe was actually born from me trying to make use of a very large bag of cherries I picked up. First I made a cherry simple syrup with the cherries. From there I made a cherry limeade.
After both of these recipes were made, I still had a good bit of cherries left over to use and I wanted a more savory recipe. I am sure glad I did!
This sticky bbq sauce should not be considered exclusive to this recipe and can be used with many other dishes.
Some great uses for this sticky cherry bbq sauce:
- grilled hamburgers
- chicken
- roasts
- shrimp
- A firm fish like tuna or salmon
This pork kebob recipe has peppers and mushrooms in the list but any vegetables that you have on hand will work well. Some of my favorite vegetables use when grilling kebobs are zucchini, squash, peppers (all varieties) and tomatoes. I even love adding large chunks of stale bread to my skewers which soak up lots of the juices from the meat and tastes delicious.
Anyway you put this together I know you will really enjoy it. This recipe is such a great way to work with cherries when they are in season.
Pork Kebobs with a sticky cherry BBQ sauce
Ingredients
Kebobs
- 4 boneless pork chops (thick cut) about an inch thick
- 1 large green bell pepper
- 1 small package of baby portabella mushrooms cleaned
Sticky Cherry BBQ sauce
- 1/8 cup red wine vinegar you can substitute with apple cider vinegar
- 1 1/4 cups fresh cherries (pitted) frozen and then thawed cherries will work too
- 1 small shallot finely diced or small yellow onion
- 1 clove of garlic finely diced
- 1/2 cup water to thin bbq sauce as needed
- 1/4 cup tomato paste
- 2 tbsp worcestershire sauce
- 1/4 tsp salt plus more to taste
Instructions
making the sticky cherry BBQ sauce
- In a blender add your vinegar, worcestershire sauce and cherries and blend on medium speed until it becomes a puree and then set aside.
- In a small sauce pan over medium heat add your olive oil, garlic and shallots and cook for about 5 minutes or until the shallots are translucent.
- Next, pour your cherry mixture from the blender into your sauce pan and mix well. The mixture will be thin at this point.
- Now add your tomato paste and carefully mix that in with a whisk or a fork until it is incorporated.
- Add your salt
- At this point, taste for seasoning and add more salt if needed. If the BBQ sauce is too thick you can add a tablespoon of water at a time until it reaches the consistency that it is spreadable. This is a very thick sauce.
- Once the sauce is done, remove from the heat and set aside on the counter to cool to room temperature
Pork kebobs
- Prepare your pork and vegetables by cutting them all the same size (about 1 inch)
- Add your pork and vegetables into a large bowl.
- Once your bbq sauce is ready and room temperature add 3/4 of the sauce to the bowl with the pork and vegetables.
- Mix the sauce in well making sure to coat everything in the sauce.
- Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 15 minutes and up to 24 hours (if you are making this ahead of time).
Assembling Skewers
- If you are working with wooden skewers you will want to make sure that yoiu have soaked them in water for at least 2 hours so they do not burn.
- Grab your skewers (4 of them) and begin adding your ingredients to the skewers. First pork then a green pepper and last a mushroom. Repeat this pattern until you reach then end of the skewer and all skewers are full.
- Take some of the remaining BBQ sauce that you had leftover and scoop half of it into a small ramekin.
- Now put aside one of the containers of BBQ for serving later and take the other container (the ramekin) and scoop some of that sauce on to the kebobs and brush it all over as much of the meat as you can. Do this with every kebob until the sauce is used up. Make sure that you do not dip the spoon into the sauce that you will be using later when serving the kebobs to be sure there is no cross contamination with the raw pork.
Grilling
- Pre-heat your bbq grill to high heat.
- Once the grill is pre-heated add your skewers to the grill and grill them for about 2-3 minutes a side. Remember that you cut your pork into a cube so there should be four sides to grill or four times that you rotate your kebobs.
- Once the kebobs have been on the grill for 10-12 minutes you can test them for doneness by using a thermometer or piercing the pork and making sure the juices that run out of the pork are clear.
- Once done, remove from the grill and place the kebobs on a plate and tent them with aluminum foil
- Let the kebobs rest for 5 minutes so the juices stay in the meat.
- Serve with your favorite side dish and any extra sauce on the side.
