3 Easy Homemade Barbecue Sauce Recipes (2024)

FAQs

What are the basics of BBQ sauce? ›

Combine brown sugar, ketchup, vinegar, water, and Worcestershire sauce in a blender. Season with mustard, paprika, salt, pepper, and hot pepper sauce. Blend until smooth.

Adding garlic or onion powder are standard flavors for barbecue, but get a little creative and try out different chile powders, peppers, cumin, or dried herbs to add body to the sauce.

The base ingredients of barbecue sauce usually include tomato sauce or ketchup, vinegar, and sweeteners, such as molasses or brown sugar. Other common ingredients include Worcestershire sauce, mustard, garlic, onion powder, and various spices, which can include paprika, cumin, and chili powder.

The base for most BBQ sauces is tomato—many start with tomato paste, some with canned tomato sauce or purée. For this recipe, we use ketchup as the base for because it doesn't require cooking.

While it depends on what you're cooking, there are some general rules when it comes to BBQ sauce. Most sauces have a high sugar content which can easily get coagulated or even burn during a long cook or high sear. So apply the sauce at the end of your cook with just enough time to cook it and set it without burning it.

Take a tip from North Carolina and look to vinegar—white vinegar, apple cider vinegar—as the key to great barbecue sauce, cutting its sweetness and lending a little tang.

Bring the sauce to a simmer over medium heat. Then, reduce the heat to low. Cook, stirring often, until the sauce has thickened, about 20 minutes.

Ingredients vary, but most include vinegar or tomato paste (or a combination) as a base, as well as Worcestershire sauce, liquid smoke, onion powder, spices such as mustard and black pepper, and sweeteners such as sugar or molasses.

Eastern Carolina-Style Vinegar Sauce

Found in the eastern half of both North and South Carolina, Eastern-style vinegar sauce has the unique honor of being the oldest barbecue sauce in the country. Given its origin in the 13 colonies, it's literally where American barbecue was born, at the hands of enslaved chefs.

What can be a substitute for BBQ sauce? ›

Eastern North Carolina Vinegar Sauce

Unlike many modern sauces, the eastern-style uses no tomato, relying instead on a tart combination of vinegar (usually cider vinegar) and added spices like cayenne, black pepper, crushed red pepper, hot sauce (often Texas Pete), salt, and sometimes water.

There are three sauces we make VERY frequently when catering and running events: Veloute, Bechamel, and Hollandaise. All culinary students must become very comfortable with these three mother sauces.

What are the 4 Main Types of BBQ Sauce? Generally, barbecue sauces is categorized into four varieties: tomato-based sauces, vinegar-based sauces, mustard-based sauces, and mayonnaise-based sauces. Each category can have a range of BBQ sauce styles, ranging from sweet and tangy to hot and spicy.

Tomato base: Most BBQ sauces include a tomato base, which can be in the form of ketchup, tomato sauce, or tomato paste. The tomato base provides the sauce with a rich, tangy flavor. Sweeteners: BBQ sauces commonly contain sweeteners to balance the acidity of the tomatoes and add a touch of sweetness.

Tomato-Based Sauce

The most typical type of barbecue sauce is tomato-based. The tomato in these concoctions is almost always in the form of ketchup, although there are exceptions to that. Tomato-based BBQ condiments became the most common in America during the middle 20th century.