Smoky Huckleberry Soy Sauce

Huckleberry Jam pairs with soy sauce and liquid smoke to create a sauce that is a little sweet, a little salty, a little smoky, and is perfect for summer grilling or rice dishes. Use as a marinade, a glaze, or a sauce to give your meal some Montanan flair.

About the Recipe:

If you haven’t had Huckleberries, you’re definitely not from Montana (or Idaho). Huckleberries are wild berries that grow at high elevations in the mountains of the North Western United States and Western Canada. They’re a favorite berry of bears and Montanans, who eagerly await the summer harvest of this small, purple berry.

Because Huckleberries are wild, you have two options to get your hands on them: find a good patch of Huckleberry bushes in the mountains and pick them yourself (bring your bear spray!), or spend a pretty penny buying them from someone else. Preserves are a way to enjoy the fruit year round in a much more cost-effective fashion. But this brings us to the question…do store-bought jams belong in a WFPB diet?

For the newbies, it’s important to understand that WFPB is different than WFPBNO (whole food, plant-based, no-oil), which is different that WFPB SOS-free (whole food, plant-based, salt, oil, and sugar-free. All WFPB diets limit the super refined foods, like oil, salt, and sugar, but not all versions completely eliminate them.

Generally, refined sugars are not welcome in a WFPB diet. Some people opt to sweeten their foods with less refined sweeteners like maple syrup or molasses, some opt for date paste, and some choose to use only fruit as a sweetener. It depends on the person and their purpose behind adopting this diet. If you’ve chosen this lifestyle to reverse diseases like diabetes or heart disease, perhaps completely eliminating all refined sugars is best. If, like me, you’ve adopted this way of eating to prevent future chronic disease, you may choose to be more flexible in your approach.

While I wouldn’t smear traditional jam on toast or eat it in large quantities, my personal belief is that using things in condiment or seasoning-like quantities is okay. For example, Dr. Greger of nutritionfacts.org talks about his hot sauce addiction. is it high in sodium? Yes. But it makes his enjoyment of veggies much greater, and is therefore worth it in his opinion. After all, no one is going to eat 1 cup of hot sauce. It’s used in small amounts. In this case, I think the refined sugar found in jam can be categorized as “something used in small amounts to make whole, plant foods taste even better”.

If you are staunchly “No refined sugar, ever”, but still want to try this recipe, you could make your own, sugar-free jams with blueberries or blackberries and use that instead!

RECIPE NOTES

1. If you can’t find huckleberry jam, use blackberry or blueberry instead.

2. The blender is required to thoroughly distribute the huckleberry flavor throughout the sauce. Just stirring it will result in jam pieces sinking to the bottom of your bowl. Not what we want.

3. This sauce is excellent as a marinade for tofu, tempeh, or veggies. You can also use it as a glaze and brush it onto grilled foods (pictured above), or as a sauce in noodle or rice dishes.

4. This sauce will keep in the fridge for up to a week.

I hope this Huckleberry sauce brings fresh new flavors to your summer BBQ- the way it livened up the veggie and tofu skewers pictured above.

Did you make this recipe? Let me know how you used it! Tag me on Instagram @notlikemama. I love to see your versions of my recipes!

Happy Cooking,

Courtney