How To Correct A Sauce
- Too spicy: If you put all of your favorite elements together but the sauce is too spicy, there are some things you can do. One obvious way to dilute the spiciness is to scale up all of the other ingredients. More of the base, sweet, and sour ingredients can help neutralize or weaken the heat. Or, try adding more sweetener with extra acid, but add it in very small amounts and taste as you go. A small amount of brown sugar or honey can tone down a spicy sauce when combined with a bit of vinegar or lemon or lime juice.
- Too sweet: If your salt is too sweet, your first impulse might be to add salt, but that can actually accentuate the sweetness. Try adding more vinegar or lemon juice to the sauce. Or dilute it with extra-base and sour elements.
- Too salty: If you use many naturally salty ingredients or reduce the sauce too much, you might find it is too salty. Lemon juice or brown sugar can help tone it down, but the best solution for a very salty sauce is to double the batch, leaving out any salty ingredients.
Bbq Sauce Flavor Profiles
Four basic barbecue sauce flavor profiles combine in varying degrees, balancing one another so the sauce is not too sweet or too spicy.
Sweet: Typically, sweetness comes from brown sugar, but you can substitute or supplement with molasses, white sugar, maple syrup, honey, soft drinks or corn syrup.
Tangy: Tang is the acid component that starts with tomato but is usually boosted with white, apple cider or other flavored vinegars and acidic fruit juices.
Salty: Salt brings it all togetherthe sweet, the tang and the heat. We recommend kosher salt because its less salty than iodized salt, but you can also use smoked salt, celery salt, onion salt or other seasoned salt.
Spicy: Your sauce needs a little kick to balance out the sweetness. Black pepper brings basic heat, but you can turn it up with peppers, hot sauces and chili powders like ancho, cayenne and chipotle.
Favorite Ways To Use Bbq Sauce
- Chicken Use on baked chicken for a flavorful meal or drizzled over shredded chicken for a BBQ Chicken Sandwich.
- Pork Delicious with ribs, brisket and definitely with pulled pork. Hello, best pulled pork sandwich ever!
- Burgers Delicious on hamburgers in place of ketchup for a tasty BBQ Burger.
- Pizza Use in place of pizza sauce for a BBQ Chicken Pizza or a Pulled Pork Pizza. Yum!
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The Instant Bbq Sauce
If youre having a barbecue in your backyard, this sauce might just become a party favorite. Its quick, its easy and its super delicious. So even if you run out, you can whip up some more in less than 5 minutes! Its sticky, its sweet, its got a hint of spice to it. Even kids will love it. In fact, theyll even be able to make it themselves because theres no stove usage involved. If youre not in the mood for a full meal, dont worry. This sauce can make the perfect dip for some crispy, golden fries.
This sauce does not contain any cholesterol or iron.
How To Use Flour To Thick Your Barbecue Sauce
Down below, you will find the basic required ingredients and how to use flour as your thickener:
What You Will Need:
Flour-Based Thickener
- 2 Tablespoons of Flour
In order to use flour as your barbecue topping thickener, you should mix 2 tablespoons of flour with 1/4 cup of water. Mix well to remove lumps and then add to your barbecue-flavor mixture.
This ratio should be used for every 1 cup of topping you are working with.
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Spicy Mustard Bbq Sauce
For as long as I remember, Ive always loved my Mamas Coca-Cola BBQ sauce. It is what I grew up on her chicken, meatloaf and so many other dishes. But then, on a trip to South Carolina after my husband and I were married, I ventured over into the other side of BBQ sauces away from the red and sweet to the yellowish orange and tangy. While I wont say that it replaced the BBQ sauce that Ive loved since I was a little girl, I readily admit that when I now love to make all sorts of BBQ sauces at my house depending on what Im planning to serve. I also like to make a selection so that guests have an option.
If you are looking for another BBQ sauce to add to your line up for an upcoming party or just to try something a little different from your usual sauce that you serve, you might want to make this to try as an option. It is one that I certainly enjoy!
Heres my Spicy Mustard BBQ Sauce Recipe. I hope you enjoy it!
What Is Bbq Sauce
If it’s flavored liquid and you pour it on smoked meat, you can call it BBQ sauce.
BBQ sauce is applied to smoked meats to enhance flavor and moisture — during both the cooking process and after the meat is cooked.
An American invention, BBQ sauce comes in many different regional varieties. It can be thick or thin, spicy or sweet, tart or creamy. There are no rules, and styles are always evolving.
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How To Make Homemade Bbq Sauce:
1. Combine ingredients. Add all ingredients to a large saucepan and mix together until smooth.
2. Cook over medium heat, stirring frequently, until mixture comes to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for 20 minutes or up to one hour, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat and allow to cool. The sauce will thicken slightly as it cools.
3. Serve. Slather this stuff on just about anything or store in an air tight container or jar in the fridge for up to 3 weeks.
Double it? I love to make this sauce and keep it in the fridge for several weeks. Depending on your family size you could double the recipe to make a bigger batch. Its delicious for dipping/marinating grilled chicken, spooning on hamburgers or ribs, or dipping as a sauce. Its my go-to when I dont have a dinner plan.
What Ingredients Are In Bbq Sauce
Vinegar and hot peppers are the original ingredients of BBQ sauce, and most recipes still include apple cider vinegar and some form of heat . Sauces in the thick, sweet Kansas City tradition — which is the style of most store-bought sauces — usually also include ketchup and brown sugar. Asian-style BBQ sauces often feature soy sauce.
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Reduce It In A Saucepan
This first one is really quick and simple.
With cooking when we talk about thickening things, we often talk about adding ingredients like cornstarch or flour to try to beef it up. Not with this first method.
Instead, what were going to do is remove ingredients.
This method focuses on taking away any excess water or vinegar thats found its way into the sauce.
Simply heat up a small saucepan on a low heat and add your sauce to it, stirring continuously. Slowly bring up the heat, not allowing it to boil, allowing the water to start to evaporate.
With the water evaporating, your sauce will have thickened. Just note that it will continue to evaporate for a minute or so after you remove it from the heat, so try to stop heating the sauce as its approaching your desired thickness rather than wait until its too late.
A History Of Bbq Sauce
It is believed that BBQ sauce originated in Ancient Europe. Many of the core ingredients of classic barbecue sauce were often used to age and cook meats in the olden days. Grape juices made from aged and fermented wine were used to baste and cook meats. Modern recipes call for vinegar to provide that sharp, acidic hint to the sweet sauce.
Around the same time, meat was often preserved in a brine mix of salt water, herbs, wine, and vinegar. These same meats were cooked using smoke to make the meat last longer and taste better. These flavors laid down the foundation for the present day version of BBQ sauce.
Its also quite fascinating to see that the first recipes of BBQ sauce show a good amount of butter forming the base of the sauce. This was seen mainly in France where butter forms the base of many classic dishes.
But for now, were looking at BBQ sauce for the present time. This sticky, sweet, salty sauce with a consistency similar to a warm caramel and the essence of a barbecue grill makes us weak at the knees. Were giving you the 5 best recipes for the ultimate BBQ sauce thats ten times better than any store-bought version. But, if youre just not the type to prepare your own, heres our list of the best store-bought barbecue sauces.
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How To Create A Barbecue Sauce
The one thing a great barbecue sauce must-have is a balance. To begin, choose the base and then add the sweet and sour elements. When it comes to barbecue sauce, there is no one perfect ratio. Do you like a super tangy sauce, a hot and spicy sauce, or a sweet sauce? Once you have the balance that suits your taste and the food you plan to cook, you can begin to add seasonings and aromatics, like salt, herbs, spices, onions, garlic, and heat.
Alabama White Bbq Sauce
Alabama white BBQ sauce is a thin, mayonnaise and vinegar-based sauce that’s best with chicken and pork. It’s one of the few popular sauces with a known inventor: “Big” Bob Gibson, a former railroad worker from Decatur, Ala.
Gibson entertained friends and family with huge weekend cookouts, and began mixing mayonnaise with vinegar as a basting sauce for smoked chicken. When he opened his first restaurant in 1925, the white sauce made the menu. The sauce’s popularity grew along with the restaurant and is now identified as the classic Alabama BBQ sauce.
Main ingredients: mayonnaise, vinegar
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How To Use Corn Starch To Thick Your Bbq Sauce
The corn starch based thickener is almost the same as the flour thickener. Overall, the preparation process is the same, just the ingredients are different.
What You Will Need:
Corn Starch-Based Thickener
- 1 Tablespoons of Corn Starch
- 1 Tablespoon of Water
For the corn starch-based thickener, you should mix 1 tablespoon of cold water and 1 tablespoon of corn starch and mix well to remove any lumps. After there isn’t any lumps left, add it to your barbecue sauce topping mixture.
The three upper mentioned methods are great and easy for a beginner. They are also good to use when your mixture is already flavorful enough but just needs a little more substance.
But, If you are looking for a way to thick your bbq sauce mixture by adding some tasty ingredients and improving its base taste, then here are some other great methods you can try.
The Slow Cooked Bbq Sauce
You may have heard stories about how the best homemade BBQ sauce is the one thats been cooked on the stove forever. This sauce sits on the stove for an hour to allow all the flavors to fully develop. This way youll end up with a rich, flavorful sauce that could become a family favorite. Using simple ingredients that youre likely to have in the pantry, this recipe will transform basic flavors into a deep, smoky sweet sauce. This one deserves a fillet of Wagyu beef, but its also perfect with a Sunday night roast.
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Kansas City Bbq Sauce
Now we bring BBQ sauce forward to the relatively recent past. The introduction of mass-produced ketchup gave cooks a simple way to add sweetness to their vinegar and pepper sauces. This sweeter sauce played a little better with folks who hadn’t grown up eating the traditional sauces. Most of the commercially available BBQ sauces and sauce recipes you’ll find are tomato-based, like Kansas City BBQ sauce.
Tomato-based BBQ sauce wasn’t invented in Kansas City, but the city is home to so many classic BBQ spots that the style and the sauce came to be associated with KC.
A classic KC sauce still contains the vinegar and pepper of the traditional sauce, but adds a thick blend of ketchup, brown sugar, and molasses for a sweet, sticky, silky texture. The sauce is usually added near the end of cooking. Our Traeger ‘Que BBQ Sauce is similar to KC-style.
Main ingredients: ketchup, brown sugar, molasses, vinegar
Adaptable Homemade Barbecue Sauce
The beauty of this sauce base is that you can change it if youre in the mood. You can use honey or molasses instead of brown sugar, you can use Dijon mustard instead of the regular yellow mustard, you can use tomato sauce for some of the ketchup. There are lots of ways to vary the base.
And then you get to add other ingredients to deepen it more, things like Worcestershire sauce, Tabasco sauce, garlic powder, smoked paprika, or all of the above!
Finally, optionally make it more complex by adding in additional spices like cumin, chili powder, or cayenne pepper. Really the options are endless. Soooo good. Youre going to love making this easy staple and doctoring it up in new ways.
The reason this simple sauce works is because of the flavor balance. You have salty and sweet flavors in the ketchup, more sweet from the brown sugar or honey, and then a good tang from the mustard. Its also great because the sugar content in the sauce makes it caramelize on food when its cooking.
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North Carolina Vinegar Bbq Sauce
North Carolina vinegar sauce is the closest to the “original” BBQ sauce of Early America. Used as both a baste during cooking and a sauce for dipping, the main components are vinegar and hot peppers. The acidity of the vinegar cuts the fat of pork which is the most commonly BBQd meat in North Carolina, and the pepper adds flavor.
Main ingredients: vinegar, hot peppers
Easy Barbecue Sauce Recipe
This homemade BBQ sauce is the best Ive ever had, and Id put it up against any store-bought BBQ sauceits just that good. Its perfectly seasoned, sweet without being too sweet, and it can be easily customized to your liking. Heres why you will love this recipe:
- Easy Once you mix all the ingredients in a saucepan, this recipe is pretty hands-off. Just let it simmer until its nice and thick, stirring occasionally.
- Delicious Its literally the best BBQ sauce, with the perfect balance of flavors.
- Healthier Okay, barbecue sauce isnt exactly a health food, but when you make it from scratch, you can skip the preservatives, corn syrup, and artificial flavors.
- Versatile Whether you use it as a sauce for Instant Pot Ribs, a topping for a burger, or a marinade for grilled chicken, youll have plenty of ways to use this sauce.
We love making sauces and condiments from scratch, from Easy Hollandaise Sauce to Tzatziki Sauce. If you do too, then youll want to save this homemade BBQ sauce recipe.
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South Carolina Mustard Bbq Sauce
American cuisine is all about the mix of cultures. In the case of South Carolina’s most distinctive sauce, German immigrants added the key ingredient of mustard to the traditional vinegar and pepper sauce that’s thought to have been introduced by Spanish settlers, African slaves, Native Americans, or some combination of the three.
Main ingredients: mustard, vinegar
How Long Does Homemade Bbq Sauce Last
Most manufactured BBQ sauces will last many months in the pantry or fridge, though you should always follow the expiration dates and other warnings on the bottle of sauce you buy.
Sauces made from scratch — like anything you make at home — should probably be used or frozen within 2 to 3 days to avoid potential bacterial contamination. Because BBQ sauce is made with acidic ingredients like tomato and vinegar, they should last fairly long, but unless you are experienced with food safety, the best advice is to eat within a few days.
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The Basics Of Bbq Sauce
You can make pretty much any sauce using one of two methods. Method one involves taking something thicklike a premade powder or the burnt stuff at the bottom of the panand adding fluids to it until its thin enough. The other method involves taking something thin and cooking it to minimize the water until its thick enough to call a sauce. For simplicity’s sake, opt for method two.
Now that we’ve got that sorted, it’s time to think about how you want your sauce to taste. Keep in mind this is for a classic red barbecue sauce. If you want to get fancy, there are other options, but well start here. Its what most people think of when they think barbecue.
A solid barbecue sauce is made up of six parts.
1. Something sweet. This can be honey, cola, molasses, preserves, brown sugar, or syrup. This caramelizes as you cook, brining those smoky, sugary flavors. This will make up about half of your core ingredients, depending on what you use.
2. Something tangy. Think vinegar, mustard, citrus, or citrus preserves. This is what brings the zing to your sauce, and makes up about a quarter of your core ingredients.
3. Something spicy.This is your heat: a hot sauce of your choosing and liking. Choose with care, and dont be afraid to put in a little more than youre used to. Aim for about half a teaspoon for every cup of sauce youre making.
