What Is The Best Bbq Sauce On The Market

Cattlemen’s Carolina Tangy Gold Bbq Sauce

Our family was introduced to Carolina Tangy Gold BBQ Sauce several years ago by one of our neighbors who was originally from South Carolina. And it has been a staple in our house ever since. Theres just something about that sweet mustardy tang that we just love. Michelle Braxton, recipe developer and blogger at Supper with Michelle

Quick Comparison: Top 10 Best Store Bought Bbq Sauce

Let’s begin with the Original Bar-B-Q Sauce by Stubb’s. This sauce is made with non-GMO and gluten-free ingredients such as tomato puree, distilled vinegar, molasses, sugar, spices such as paprika, black pepper and chilli pepper, corn starch, onion, garlic and more.

This product also includes xantham gum which is used to thicken the sauce which is safe to consume as long as you don’t eat more than 15g of this ingredient every day.

If you do, you may have bloating and intestinal issues such as excessive gas. Lastly, Stubb’s does not include any high-fructose corn syrup which is an artificial sweetener that has been linked to the increasing rate of obesity and other medical conditions such as fatty liver disease.

This sauce is specifically great alongside all types of meat thanks to its tomato flavour and thick consistency. With 30 calories per serving , 250mg of sodium and 5g of sugars, this sauce is suitable for everyone without being harmful to your health, just as long as you keep to the recommended serving size!

Pros

• This sauce is made only with non-GMO ingredients.
• Is suitable for those who are gluten-free.
• Does not include high-fructose corn syrup.
• Is low in calories and sodium.

Cons

• Contains xanthan gum which can have negative side effects if consumed too much.
• You can easily consume too much sugar with this product so be mindful to not exceed the serving size.

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What Makes A Great Barbecue Sauce

It’s all relative, but most pitmasters agree that balance is key to a great barbecue sauce. Most sauces are made with a tomato base, vinegar, some sweetener like honey or molasses and an element of heat. From there, sauces are fine-tuned with spices and flavors, such as mustard, garlic, fruit and smoke. Any sauce that’s too overwhelming in any one direction usually doesn’t work well. And super simple sauces without much spice or complexity often fall flat.

We tasted many traditional Kansas City-style sauces for this list, a host of vinegar-heavy Carolina-style sauces, some keto-friendly sauces, Bachan’s cult-favorite Japanese-style sauce and a few Alabama white sauces to see which ones really tickled our taste buds. We tried each one with plain unseasoned chicken breast since it’s a rather blank slate as far as classic grilled foods go. When tasting, we noted things like overall balance, heat, sweetness, overwhelming flavors or anything else that jumped out — both bad and good.

It took a lot of napkins to find the best barbecue sauce in 2022. Here they are.

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The Best & Worst Barbecue Sauces On Store Shelves According To Rds

Barbecue sauce is the much-needed complement for juicy, baby back ribs or even a grilled chicken sandwich on a warm summer’s day. Yet, some barbecue sauces are actually laden with sugar and sodium. And slathering them all over that healthy grilled meat can instantly turn the meal into a diet disaster.

See, it’s often hard to stick to one serving size. You’re probably dousing your meat, veggies, and fish in that hearty, mouthwateringly tasty BBQ sauce without considering portion size, calories, and how the sauce may affect your body’s water retention and blood sugar. Kind of the last thing on your mind when you’re at a backyard hang, right?

Luckily, there are some BBQ sauces out there on the grocery store shelves that are lower in sugar, carbs, calories, and sodium. They’ll spruce up that grilled patty on a bun the right way.

So, to best help you out when you’re shopping, here are the best and worst barbecue sauce options. We rounded up some of the better-for-you picks, and which bottles are the biggest diet doozies you’ll want to avoid.

Homemade Bbq Sauce Recipe Ingredients

This BBQ Sauce comes together quickly with just a handful of ingredients that I generally have in my refrigerator or my pantry and is one that I think you all will fall in love with as well. Ive had friends ask me to please make extra for them to take home and if Id bottle it, theyd surely buy it.

To make this homemade BBQ Sauce, youll need:

Read Also: Yais Thai Sweet Chili Sauce

Underwood Ranches Bibimbap Sauce

Why youll love it:

A staple of Korean barbeque, gochujang sauce is an interesting marriage of a hot sauce and a barbeque sauce, blurring the lines between the two.

It has spice to it, for sure, but also a ton of flavor, bringing a salty, savory or umami taste that complements meat perfectly. This is largely due to its nonstandard ingredient pool, combining chili paste, soy sauce, sesame oil, and a hint of ginger to create a unique and unforgettable flavor.

• Spicy chili sauce provides a unique kick and unforgettable flavor to food.
• Heavy on the spice, but not unpalatable.
• Great on pretty much any meat or vegetable and extremely versatile sauce for cooking.
• Staple of Korean foods, and a good sauce to keep around for special occasions and culinary experimentation.

What we didnt like

• Doesnt make a great sauce for everyday use, unless you plan to make a ton of Korean dishes.

This particular sauce is also kicked up a notch by the addition of red jalapenos, farm grown at Underwoods ranches and put into the sauce fresh, resulting in a flavor that pops a lot more than most spicy sauces manage.

This is not a go to hot sauce, or barbeque sauce for that matter at least to me. However, its an excellent sauce to keep in your back pocket for when you want to surprise some dinner guests, or maybe just switch things up a bit and make food thats a bit different than the norm.

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Folks, its barbecue season. That means afternoons in the sunshine, firing up the coals. Therell be crispy grilled chicken wings, juicy smoked ribs and tender slow-cookedmushrooms.

All this can be elevated to culinary greatness with the addition of one simple ingredient: the perfect barbecue sauce.

Tangy, sweet, savoury, spicy the best barbecue sauce brings flavour and character to all your grills. And it brings them fast. A good one is versatile and tastes as good as a condiment with cooked food as it does as a marinade pre-cooking.

Rather than buying dozens of faffy ingredients to make your own, you can reach for a single glorious bottle to act as an all-in-one marinade, dipping sauce and burger topper.

Choose the right barbecue sauce, and you wont need any other condiments to make your meal shine. Choose a bad one, however, and even with all the quality meat and cooking prowess in the world, those ribs just arent going to taste right.

Read more:

• 10 best gas barbecues for upgrading your grilling game

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What To Look For In A Great Bbq Sauce

As mentioned, there are a ton of different kinds of barbeque sauce. All the best ones will be made from natural ingredients, and usually a fairly small number of them. A sauces ingredients are kind of like paint if you add too many you just end up with kind of a dull blah sauce in terms of both taste and texture.

If your sauce of choice manages to sidestep that, it should have some kind of distinct flavor profile. This is just sort of what its basic taste structure is, and is going to be determined in large part by what the main ingredient of the sauce is. This is also going to generally be what determines the texture of your sauce, whether its thick or thin.

For example, a standard barbeque sauce is largely tomato based a mix of tomato sauce or puree and tomato paste that gives it its thickness. Then you add in ingredients like brown sugar, for sweetness, and Worcestershire sauce for a bit more umami. Combined with the other ingredients you get a sauce that is both savory and sweet in equal measures.

But as a counterexample, there are a lot of sauces with a vinegar base, like the Carolina Vinegar barbeque sauce type I mentioned. These are also made from simple ingredients, and largely let the vinegar do the talking with a bit of backup from certain herbs and spices that mellow out the bitterness.

Having a good idea of what goes into each of these is important, as it determines what you can use it for.

Its all a matter of taste, pun definitely intended.

Jay Ds Louisiana Barbeque Sauce

Why youll love this:

This absolutely beautiful sweet and spicy sauce helps give a Cajun style kick to any meal youd care to. Hand crafted in small batches, with a wide array of complementary ingredients, it makes for a unique sauce that might not end up being your go-to, but is sure to be a crowd pleaser whenever it comes out.

What We Liked

• Unique flavor that pairs well with just about anything.
• Extremely spicy and tangy flavor profiles a lot of barbeque sauces hint at but few dive deep into.
• Handcrafted in small batches for extra quality.
• Nice flask style bottle is reusable.

What We Didnt Like

• Has a bit of a kick to it, in terms of heat, so may not be the best for people who like their sauces more savory and sweet than spicy.

This is a nice little sauce, with a unique and fairly hard to describe flavor. It takes a lot of the factors youd expect to find in a barbeque sauce and puts a bit of a twist on them, resulting in a sauce that has a lot of zing to it.

Its quite spicy for a barbeque sauce, incorporating Louisiana hot sauce, peppers, and Creole mustard with lemon juice and apple cider vinegar among the other ingredients. The result is a fairly thin sauce that faintly sings with flavor, and the thin coating that a sauce lacking in thickness like this provides more than enough to impart a delicious flavor to all manner of foods, but pairs especially well with pulled pork or chicken.

Read Also: Chick Fil A Sauce Ingredients

How To Apply Bbq Sauces Like A Pro

The technique for applying BBQ sauce is different for each type of meat as youll find out below:

Chicken: Basting the chicken is the best way to apply BBQ sauce to it. Baste it enough to cover the whole meat, but dont drench. A thick sauce is best for chicken so that it can stay on the meat. Firstly, spread the sauce on one side of the chicken and allow it to cook for about five minutes. Then, flip it over and coat the other side with the sauce and let it cook too.

Turkey: Applying BBQ sauce to turkey is quite similar to doing the same to chicken. Spread a thick coat of sauce on one side of the turkey and allow it to cook for about 5-15 minutes. Flip it over to the other side, apply the sauce to it, and allow it to cook too.

Beef: When it comes to beef, its best to apply the BBQ sauce in the early stages of the cooking process. Make thin cuts into the meat and apply sauce so that it seeps into the cuts. When the cooking is done, spread the final layer of sauce on the meat and get a foil to wrap it. This will let the last layer of the sauce stick to the meat, providing a complete flavor

Pork: For pork, add the BBQ sauce near the end of the cooking, usually about 15-20 minutes before the meat is done. Besides, you should warm the sauce before applying it so that it can cover the entire meat. Also, you should the sauce in thin layers to achieve the best flavor.

No Matter Your Regional Preference You’ll Find Great Choices Here

These top-notch barbecue sauces are surefire shortcuts to delicious, lip-smacking-good barbecue. Whether you’re a barbecue purist devoted to a regional style or like to mix things up when you turn on the grill, you’ll find your ideal sauce here. In no particular order, here are barbecue sauces that top the tasty list.

Also Check: Bumble Bee Red Clam Sauce Recipe

Heinz Sticky Barbecue Sauce

It was a bit of a surprise when this bottle placed third in our taste test we had so many bottles made by ‘artisanal’ producers we assumed something like Heinz would be relegated to the back of the list. However, it just goes to show that theres a reason the company has been in business for 150 years they know how to tickle our taste buds. Everyone on the panel agreed it was the best all-rounder, and would please everyone at a party thanks to its balanced flavour. It wasnt too smoky, too hot, too spiced or too sweet and had a nice authentically woody taste from the smoke.

£1.99 from Tesco

If Youre Making Seafood: Stonewall Kitchen Smoky Peach Whiskey Sauce

While you can dress up burgers, wings, pork and beyond with this Southern-inspired sauce, we think seafood is its soulmate. Its loaded with brown sugar, honey and smoked peaches. We see this bringing the best out of Vietnamese-style summer rolls, shrimp stir-fry or a salmon burger piled high with coleslaw.

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Campbells Slow Cooker Sauces Apple Bourbon

A unique take on barbecue sauce, this bagged Campbells offering was formulated for super easy-to-make slow-cooked meals, in particular, pulled pork. Simply throw some swine in a crockpot, pour in the sauce, let it cook for seven-to-eight hours on low, and voila: youve got delicious, ready-to-eat, restaurant-quality apple bourbon pulled pork. Toss this stuff in a bun and youre good to go.

Size: 13oz

Blues Hog Barbecue Sauce

Blue Hog is among those brand who provides its costumers with a superior product all the time. Therefore, the brand is repeating history by building this best smokey bbq sauce. This is a top-rated bbq sauce as well. Moreover, it is not too much costly and provides you with a huge amount of sauce. Because the bottle of this sauce obtains 64 oz amount of sauce for you.

Above all, the flavour of the product is original. That is to say, all the elements of this sauce are native and fresh. Most importantly, it is Gluten-Free like all other high-quality sauces. Furthermore, if we talk about the taste of this top bbq sauce. It is an outstanding sauce to serve with various food items. For example, chicken burger, french chips, sandwiches and many more. In other words, it is a complete and ideal product for you.

Ingredients

• Corn Syrup
• Smokey Flavours

Most importantly, these ingredients are necessary for any flavourful bbq sauce. Therefore, the brand has prepared this sauce with all these natural elements. Moreover, this combo is the reason behind its delectable taste. It is useful for various food items. That is to say, you can comfortably use this tastier sauce for all kinds of food products.

About the product

Achievements

Above all, the feature that makes it top-rated bbq sauce is its award-winning performance. The brand has won various awards for the sauce championship. In short, it is an ideal choice for serving this sauce on regular basis.

Sauce Amount

Gluten-Free

Read Also: Healthy Alternative To Soy Sauce

Head Country Bbq Sauce

Head Country brand provides its users with delectable and best barbecue sauces. This bbq sauce is built by this brand as well. Most importantly, it is built with rare elements that make it a high-quality sauce to serve. Although, this is the best bbq sauce for ribs. But you can comfortably serve it other foods. Such as burgers, pizza etc.

Above all, the flavour of this sauce is original. Moreover, you get 3 bottles of this sauce at the same price. If we talk about the amount of the sauce inside bottles. Each of the bottles contains 20 oz amount of delectable sauce. You can easily serve it for a specific time. If you place the product accordingly. For motivation, we will enlight the ingredients used for its preparation.

Ingredients

• Powder of onions
• Garlic powder

These are the ingredients behind the delectable taste of this best sauce for bbq. None of the element inside the product is unnatural. Therefore, the item tastes better and flavourful. Moreover, the customer reviews aware us that it is an ideal sauce for bbq and other kinds of food. That is to say, it is among the best bbq sauces.

About the Product

Amount

Taste

It will surely let you enjoy the rare taste of your food. Because it obtains an amazing combo of ingredients inside it. Furthermore, the elements inside the sauce are original and second to none.

Various uses

What I Love About This Bbq Sauce Recipe:

• The perfect flavor combo. It has a little tang and sweetness, and a little smokey flavor that I cant get enough of. Liquid smoke helps to add that amazing smokey flavor.
• Made with pantry staples. Basic ingredients including tomato sauce, ketchup, sugar, molasses, red wine vinegar, and spices. The only thing you may not have on hand is liquid smoke, which is inexpensive and easy to find. Use liquid smoke in fajitas, baked beans, and Instant Pot Ribs.

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