Barbecue sauce is easier to cook with than it looks. Here's how to choose, use, and store it, what to substitute, and 225 recipes to get you started.

What is barbecue sauce?

Barbecue sauce is a thick, tangy, usually sweet condiment built on a tomato or vinegar base and carrying sugar, smoke, and spice. It is the finishing glaze brushed onto ribs and chicken, and the dunking sauce that shows up next to almost anything off a grill.

There is no single recipe. What sits in the bottle depends on where it came from, and American barbecue splits into camps that argue about almost everything: tomato or vinegar, sweet or sharp, thick or thin.

Regional Styles

Kansas City sauce is the one most people picture. It is thick and dark, heavy on tomato, sweet with molasses and brown sugar, and it clings to everything. It is also the default for grocery-store bottles.

Memphis runs thinner and more balanced. It leans on tomato but cuts the sugar with vinegar so it works as both a mop and a table sauce. Texas tends to be thinner still, peppery, sometimes spiked with the meat drippings, and far less sweet.

The Carolinas break from tomato entirely.

Eastern North Carolina sauce is cider vinegar cut with red pepper and salt, sharp and thin, made to slice through rich pork. South Carolina goes gold with a mustard base that tastes nothing like the rest.

Alabama is the real outlier. Its white sauce is built on mayonnaise and vinegar with plenty of black pepper, made for smoked chicken.

Cooking With Barbecue Sauce

The single biggest mistake is putting sweet sauce on early.

Sugar starts to scorch around 265°F (130°C), so a sauce heavy with molasses and brown sugar will turn black and bitter long before the meat is done over direct heat.

Brush sweet, tomato-based sauce on only in the last 10 to 15 minutes, then move the meat to indirect heat or pull the temperature down. Apply it in thin coats and let each one set before the next, so you build a lacquer instead of a gummy slick.

Vinegar and mustard sauces carry little or no sugar, so they tolerate heat and can go on earlier or be served at the table.

It earns its keep beyond the grill. It glazes Glazed Beef Ribs - Instant Pot under pressure, binds Sloppy Bbq Joes, coats Slow Cooker Cranberry Cocktail Sausages, and deepens a pot of Best Ever Baked Beans.

Making Your Own

Bottled sauce is fine, but a homemade batch comes together in about 20 minutes and lets you dial the sweetness and heat yourself. A standard Kansas City style starts with ketchup, plus brown sugar, cider vinegar, Worcestershire, mustard, smoked paprika, and onion and garlic powder.

Simmer it gently, uncovered, for 15 to 20 minutes so it thickens and the raw vinegar edge cooks off.

Taste as it reduces: if it is too sweet, add vinegar a splash at a time; too sharp, add a spoonful more sugar. The flavor sharpens after a night in the fridge.

Substitutes

Out of barbecue sauce, the fastest stand-in is ketchup loosened with a splash of vinegar, a spoon of brown sugar, and a shake of smoked paprika. It hits the same sweet, tangy, savory notes that define a Kansas City bottle.

Hoisin works where you want something sweet and thick, especially in Asian-leaning dishes, though it brings its own fermented-bean depth. Steak sauce or a spoonful of plum sauce can cover a glaze in a pinch.

For a vinegar-style Carolina sauce there is no real shortcut, since it is mostly cider vinegar with pepper and salt, so just mix that.

Buying & Storage

Read the first ingredient on the label.

Most mass-market bottles lead with high-fructose corn syrup or sugar; ones that lead with tomato or vinegar usually taste less candied. Match the style to the job: thick and sweet for ribs and chicken, thin and sharp for pulled pork and sandwiches.

An unopened bottle keeps in the pantry for about a year past its date, thanks to all that sugar and acid. Once opened, refrigerate it.

Commercial sauce holds about four months in the fridge, and a homemade batch roughly one to two weeks in a sealed jar. Toss any sauce that smells fermented or grows mold.

Nutrition

Quick facts

Where to find barbecue sauce: Barbecue sauce is usually found in the condiments section or aisle of the grocery store or supermarket.

Food group: Barbecue sauce is a member of the Soups, Sauces, and Gravies US Department of Agriculture nutritional food group.

In Chinese

烤肉调味汁

British (UK) term

Barbecue sauce

en français

le sauce barbecue

en español

salsa barbecue

How much does barbecue sauce weigh?

Amount	Weight
1 serving 2 tbsp	35 grams
1 cup (8 fl oz)	250 grams

Related

Soups, Sauces, and Gravies

Recipes using barbecue sauce

There are 225 recipes that contain this ingredient.

All 225 recipes

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