craig's recipes

How to make Barbecue (BBQ) Sauce

In the United States, there are a variety of kinds of barbecue (BBQ) sauce from different locales in the country. The BBQ sauce recipe here is a Kansas City style sauce, a thick dark brown to red, sweet, tomato and molasses based sauce. This is really a very good sauce. Try it. You'll probably want to make a double recipe. I like to use it on Pork Spare Ribs (How to Cook Great Ribs).

Servings: 4

Preparation Time: 1:00

Categories: American, Sauces

In the United States there are four basic kinds of BBQ sauce:

1. Sweet and Thick - Kansas City style sauce. It is dark brown to red, sweet, with a tomato and molasses base, and is not very spicy. This is the style of sauce that this recipe makes. Commercial examples of Kansas City style sauce are KC Masterpiece®, and Bullseye® Original.
2. Spicy and less sweet - Texas style sauce. This sauce is a tomato based sauce, not as thick as the Kansas City style, with hot chiles or red (cayanne) pepper, and it usually has cumin as an ingredient giving it a south western flavor.
3. Spicy and somewhat sweet -  St. Louis style sauce.  This sauce is a combination of the above two types of sauces, Kansas City and Texas styles. It is tomato-based, thinned with vinegar, and both sweet and spicy, but not as sweet or thick as Kansas City style, nor as spicy hot  as the Texas style.
4. Vinegary and thin - Memphis style and other south eastern styles including North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama, Arkansas and Georgia styles.  The common base ingredient in these sauces is vinegar, and they vary on the other main ingredients, mustard, tomato, hot chiles, black pepper, etc.  If you are looking for this type of sauce, try this recipe [ibdjohn.com].

Note that sweet sauces that have high sugar content should not be applied before cooking when using high-heat cooking methods, like grilling. The sugar in the sauce will burn and you'll have a crispy black coating on your meat.

Ingredients

2 cups water

1½ cups light corn syrup

1 cup tomato paste

1 1/3 cups distilled white vinegar

2/3 cup dark brown sugar

6 Tablespoons (about 3/8 cup) molasses -- I use Grandma's Original (Mild Unsulphured)

2½ teaspoons liquid smoke flavoring

2 teaspoons salt

½ teaspoon onion powder

½ teaspoon black pepper

½ teaspoon dry mustard, ground -- I use Colman's Dry Mustard

¼ teaspoon paprika

¼ teaspoon garlic powder

1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper

Preparing the Barbecue Sauce:

1. Combine all ingredients in a medium saucepan over high heat and whisk until smooth.

2. Bring the mixture to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer uncovered until thick. This will take a minimum of 45 minutes, but may take up to about 3 hours. Just keep simmering it until it is reduced by half and becomes thick.

3. Cool, then store in a covered container in the refrigerator overnight.

Makes 3 cups

Enjoy!