Bar-B-Que Sauce
Submitted by Nicole1285
Homemade BBQ sauce blends sauteed onion and garlic with ketchup, molasses, vinegar, Worcestershire, and mustard, thickened with a touch of cornstarch. Sticky, smoky-sweet sauce for grilled chicken, pork, or beef.
YIELD
8 servingsPREP
5 minCOOK
20 minREADY
25 minHomemade BBQ sauce is the kind of foundational pantry recipe everyone should have memorized. Twelve minutes on the stove, ten ingredients almost guaranteed to already be in your kitchen, and a sauce that beats anything you can buy in a bottle. Use it as a marinade or as a basting glaze for grilled meats.
Starting with sauteed onion and garlic is what gives this sauce body and depth. Most jarred BBQ sauces skip the alliums entirely and rely on smoke flavors instead. Browning the onion first builds a sweet, caramelized base that the rest of the sauce hangs on.
Molasses (rather than just brown sugar) is the small-but-defining detail. Two tablespoons add that smoky, almost rum-like depth that quality BBQ sauces have. The flavor compounds in molasses can’t be replaced by sugar alone.
The cornstarch slurry is the trick for that thick, clingy texture without resorting to long reductions. A teaspoon of cornstarch stirred into the cold water before adding to the simmering sauce thickens it within minutes, giving the sauce a glossy, lacquered look that brushes onto meat beautifully.
Pro Tips
- Brown the onion until clear and soft, but stop before it browns too dark. Burnt onion ruins the entire batch with bitter notes.
- Stir in the Worcestershire and mustard before the ketchup. The wet ingredients meld together better when added in stages, especially when ketchup is the largest volume.
- Simmer the sauce at least 10 minutes for the flavors to meld. Skipping this step gives a one-note tomato-and-vinegar taste.
- Use as a marinade for chicken, pork, or beef. Two hours minimum, overnight ideal.
- Freeze leftover sauce in pint containers for up to 3 months. Thaw overnight in the fridge before using.
Variations
Ingredients
Directions
Heat oil in pan. Dice onion, add to pan. Brown onions over high heat, add garlic, if desired. Stir as needed, so the onion doesn’t burn. When onion turns clear, add the following and quickly stir in vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, molasses and mustard. When these have mulled together, stir in catsup and cold water with cornstarch stirred in.
Simmer sauce over low heat, for at least ten minutes. Take care it doesn’t burn. More water can be added, to thin, or to make more sauce. The corn starch will thicken the sauce as it simmers.
This sauce can be used as a marinade for beef, pork or chicken. Remove meat from sauce to BBQ, or bake in sauce in oven at 350’F. Usually marinade enough chicken for 6 to 8 people in half of this recipe and freeze the other half of the sauce, for another time.
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