BBQ Chicken Sandwiches

I wish I was one of those people who had their dinners all planned out for the week or month, but I'm just not.  I'll admit it now, I'm a procrastinator...and my procrastination has crossed over into my dinner making.  Most nights, I do not have a plan for dinner, and I usually don't start thinking about it until about 4:00 or later.  And if I don't have a definite plan for what I want to make, I will check my cookbooks or online recipe sites to see if I can find something new to make.  So, yesterday, I was somewhat on top of it.  I had about 4 lbs of chicken breasts that I just bought and needed to use.  Knowing that I can find many recipes that use cooked chicken, I put my chicken in the slow cooker(adding only salt, black pepper, and water) around 9:30 in the morning and cooked it on high all day.  Trying to use whatever else I had on hand, I remembered that I just bought these really good sandwich rolls from Costco, and decided I would use the cooked chicken to make BBQ chicken sandwiches.  Only one problem...I was OUT of BBQ sauce! Instead of nixing the BBQ chicken idea, I looked up a few recipes to see if I could make my own sauce from scratch.  Taking what ingredients seemed to be the same for all of them, I then adjusted it to my liking (and with what ingredients I had on hand).   Here's what I came up with:

BBQ sauce for BBQ Chicken Sandwiches
adapted from Farmgirl Fare

3 TB EVOO
1 large onion, finely chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
1/2 cup golden molasses
2 TB granulated sugar
2 TB honey
1 28 oz can diced tomatoes, drained and pureed (I used my mini food processor)
1/2 cup water
1 tsp salt
1 tsp ground black pepper
a few shakes of ground cayenne pepper (optional)

Heat oil in 4 qt. sauce pan at medium heat.  Add onions, and cook until softened. Reduce heat, and cook onions for 30 minutes to caramelize, stirring occasionally.  Turn heat back up to medium, and add garlic. Cook for 5 minutes.  Add the rest of ingredients and bring to a boil.  Reduce heat, and simmer for about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Place sauce in food processor to smooth out if desired.  Makes about 2 cups. 

Once the chicken was cooked until it was very tender and falling apart, I took 2 1/2 chicken breasts (about 2 lbs) and shredded it with two forks.  Then, added the hot BBQ sauce, and stirred to coat the chicken.  I served it on the delicious sandwich rolls from Costco with extra dipping sauce on the side. 

These sandwiches were so good, but I'm telling you, the chicken was so good that it could be eaten without a roll!! Delicious! My 5 year old son, who at first refused to take a bite of the chicken, finally tried one bite, then asked for more!  He said it was "really good"!  As for the leftover 1 1/2 lbs of cooked chicken I didn't use...I may just have to make another batch of this BBQ sauce!  : )